Commitment Buffers
by BIFF1
Summary: Dick and Mac live with Logan and Veronica in their attempt to have some sort of commitment buffer between them. Only problem with the arrangement is that Mac and Dick tolerate each other at best which is a big improvement as far as their concerned. However living in such close quarters may prove difficult when it becomes obvious that they may actually sort of like each other.
1. Day One: Dick

**Day one: Dick**

Dick had to say he was pretty pleased with his new house. Sure he didn't live there alone and his name wasn't on the paperwork alone or anything but this shit was his. Of course he had always planned on dragging Logan with him out of the Grand, kicking and screaming if he had to. He sure as fuck was not ready to be alone after all that...yeah.

When Logan had told him that if he was going to live with him he'd be inviting Veronica to move in with him he hadn't really been surprised. Unhappy sure but it was easy enough to get over, he wasn't going to cockblock him or anything. Plus a long time ago he had gotten along just fine with Ronnie, plus, and don't tell anyone, but he felt safer having her around.

She was a bitch sure, but she was a bitch he wanted in his corner.

He hadn't been so easy to appease after he found out that Ronnie had her own requirements.

Mac.

Her requirement was bringing Mac with her. Using the geek as some sort of commitment buffer, like he wasn't good enough to ruin any romantic atmosphere they had going, she didn't want to be alone with two boys and neither did Papa Mars.

Logan had given up his claim of the master bedroom to appease him.

He didn't so much have an issue with her as a person...any more... Logan seemed to like her as a friend and she wasn't one of those gold digging whores that wanted his money or those shallow bitches that wanted him because he was good looking. In fact she didn't want him at all and perhaps that was the issue. He knew how to deal with girls that wanted him for all the wrong reasons, he knew how to deal with girls who didn't know his last name, girls that thought he was just some good looking frat boy. Dealing with a girl who knew all about him, that was a part of his terrible past, who shared his trauma...that was what he didn't know how to deal with.

The sounds of a repetitive building base and the strings of what sounded like a bond theme filled the beach house.

_Flashing _

_lights_

_Flashing_

_lights_

Kanye's voice burst through the air. Confused Dick heads towards the sound, he didn't think Logan was back yet, he looks at his watch, sure that he and Veronica were supposed to be helping Mac load up all her stuff for a couple more hours at least.

He turns the corner and has to grab a hold of the wall.

There is a pert ass high in the air, the image is all legs and ass and cables.

It's the cables that give her away as Mac. She's shaking her ass to the beat her head is behind the flat screen cables all around her, she's completely oblivious to his presence and he's not sure what to do. If he should just leave or if he should say something. She's in short shorts and her wide open red chucks and shit she looks good.

She grabs at the mass of cables at her feet and without even looking feels out the correct ones for whatever the hell she's doing and continues her work.

He has to say something!

"What are you doing?"

Mac stands up so quickly she cracks her head on the tv and the whole thing wobbles violently. Her hands fly out quickly to stabilize it forgetting about her head, like the tv was irreplaceable or some shit. Hell this isn't even the first tv they've had in the beach house. A beer pong accident.

"Jesus. wear a bell." she hisses her hands going back to her head. She's wearing some light and flowy tunic thing, it's white and he can see where her body starts and ends through it. It's a mean shirt, telling but not showing a thing. Her hair is without the stark colour contrast he's grown so used to. It's all brown and soft and wavy past her shoulders.

Shit the rest of her looks good too.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to show me were the first aid kit is?"

"First aid kit?"

"Seriously? You live here and Logan doesn't have a first aid kit filled with ipecac and batman band aids for you?"

"Ip a what?"

She stands there in the centre of a wreath of cables, one hand on the back of her head and a hip jutting out like she should be on some geek girl calander, something he is suddenly very sure he'd buy, and rolls her eyes at him. With a heavy sigh she marches past him, brushing by him, the smell of hot wires and clean linen sticks to him as she disappears up stairs.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a quick text to Logan

_A) do we have a first aid kit and B) I hate you._

He wanders up the stairs after her when his phone goes off again.

_A) yes under my bed, why and B) why this time?_

He responds with one word, a name, and he's sure it will send Logan and Ronnie back home quicker than anything else.

The door to the bathroom is open, and the orange light pools out onto the hardwood of the hall. He goes to it to tell her were the first aid kit actually is when once again his eyes land on her ass. Seriously does she do everything with that thing in the air. It's obvious just how short the shorts are as she basically climbs into the cabinet in search of aid. He takes a deep breath and is sure he's accidentally memorizing the curves of her body.

"It's not there, it's under Logan's bed."

She knocks over some bottles under the sink in her effort to remove herself from it's confines and thankfully doesn't injure herself any further. He can only imagine the kind of shit storm Ronnie would bring upon him if she thought he was manhandling her sweet little Q.

He leads the way into the second biggest bedroom, Logan's stuff is mostly put away, Ronnie's stuff still litters the room in various states of unpacked. He gets on his knees as Mac sits on the edge of the bed. She's oddly silent as he pulls the white metal box out from under the bed.

"Should I be worried that Logan feels the need to keep a hospital grade first aid kit under his bed?" She asks as he flicks the metal latches. He looks up at her and her face is a nice flushed colour and it tightens everything in him.

He just shrugs, "Ronnie and Logan get in knock down drag out fights all the time, " He grabs the peroxide bottle and some cotton and looks back up at her, she looks shocked and horrified, "Not with each other." He tells her quickly climbing up on the bed, a leg tucked under him and the other hanging off the bed, he gets in close to her, and leans her head down, his hands in her hair moving it away from the cut before she has a chance to slap his hands away.

"oh."

"Yeah they fight bad guys a lot. Comes with the solving crime thing I guess."

"and with being Logan." She responds and he finds himself laughing lightly as he applies the peroxide to her small wound.

"Yeah. What with them and me and you being a clutz I guess that's why he has a hospital grade first aid kit."

She looks back at him, "I am not a clutz." she tells him firmly.

"Yeah yeah, your as graceful as Plisetskaya.**" **he tells her with a smirk.

She's silent and lets him push the cotton through her hair and he's so focused on being careful and gentle with her that the house could explode around him and he'd barely notice.

"Well isn't this just a kodak moment." Logan's voice burst across the room destroying any illusions of intimacy. Dick looks up at him quickly and wonders if he can tell he's trying to kill him with laser eyes.

Veronica pushes past Logan and shoves Dick out of her way to look at Mac's head.

"What happened?" She frets like a mother hen and Dick just rolls his eyes and pushes past Logan on his way back downstairs, he needs a drink, and a new room mate, and maybe a new life while were at it.

He doesn't realise that Logan's followed him until he turns around the island to see him leaning against the wall.

"So what happened?" Logan asks and Dick weighs his options while he searches the fridge for a drink. Lying won't get him anywhere, Logan can read him like a book anyway.

"Have you seen her ass?" he decided to lead with that because surely if she didn't have an ass that didn't quit this would not be a problem.

"I guess, I mean I know she has one cause she doesn't fall off chairs or anything. I've never really looked at it before man. She's not really my type."

"Since when is petite and too smart not your type?"

"Since she's not Veronica?"

"Whatever." Dick leans against the island twisting the cap off his unfortunately devoid of alcoholic content coke.

"So her ass?" Logan waves him on, the smirk on his face growing by the second.

"So I just turned the corner and there it was all...I don't know...amazing and out there? She was doing some cable hook up junk."

Logan snickers and he just knows he's going to make a joke about how he wishes she was hooked up to his junk or something. Logan seems to know that Dick knows and lets it go. He probably didn't have anything that good anyway.

"So you stood there hypnotised by her ass until you had to say something or it'd get super weird when she noticed you standing there." Logan supplies because he knows Dick and of course that would happen.

Dick just nods and hopes that this is the last day he'll ever see Mac's ass. There is just no way he can stop himself from trying to hit that if that kinda thing happens every day.

"So...rate her ass?" Logan smirks.

Dick rolls his eyes and leaves the room.

It's easily a ten anyway. easy.


	2. Day One: MAC

Day One: Mac

"I'm fine Veronica really."

"What did he do?" She asks her voice a quiet threatening thing and it warms something in her that Veronica is so willing to go to the mat for her. She doesn't even need to know all the facts all she needs is a name and a direction. It's a powerful and comforting feeling.

"He just startled me, I did it to myself." She tells her putting a hand over hers, her wound has already been cleaned, by Dick, with his surprisingly gentle fingers. She finds her mind wandering to what else he'd be so gentle at with those fingers and her face suddenly flushes.

"You're sure? He can't hear you, you can tell me if he did anything."

"Does Dick like the ballet?" she finds herself asking and Veronica laughs for a solid minute.

"Why you want to ask him to the ballet?" she's got her hand pressed to her face to keep her laughter inside causing her to shake the bed with the confided energy, "I don't think he's ever sat still that long in his life. The girls in next to nothing I'm sure he'd approve of but no I'm pretty sure he doesn't like the ballet. I'm pretty sure the only things Dick likes are," she starts to count off her fingers, "video games, easy babes, beer, Logan, and surfing."

"Yeah you're probably right." she nods and pushes herself up off the bed, "so did you manage to get the last of my stuff into the Saturn Mars?"

"I thought the deal was that we'd shlup boxes if you rigged up an amazing borderline illegal entertainment unit Missy. No boxes are leaving that suv until I see some surround."

Mac lets out a sigh but smiles, "fine fine." Veronica jumps up from the bed and slings an arm around her best girlfriend and starts walking her out of the room, "why did I agree to live with you again?"

"Easy," Veronica's smile is mega watt and her eyes are sparkling and her arm comes snugger against her body and there's none of that scared desperate girl who had begged her to move in with her and she's glad because if she thought smart confident Veronica was hard to deny desperate verge of tears (fake or not) is impossible., "you love me."

"Oh right, I forgot." Mac smiles at her as they descend the wide staircase into the brightly light main floor. The house is just beautiful, all natural light flooding into every corner from the large windows that lead out onto the deck and onto the beach, The house is up on a little ridge that gives it just enough height to not really see the beach when you look out the windows from here, just ocean, "The view doesn't hurt either." she concedes ducking out of Veronica's embrace and heading towards the living room where she still has speakers and wires and cables littered all over the place.

As she busies herself with the construction of the best entertainment system anyone has seen her mind keeps flitting back and forth to ballet dancers that Dick has no right knowing and the soft warmth of his touch.

It takes her three solid hours of work to wire everything, all consoles up and running, a little mini server for movies and storage racked in back, speakers in all appropriate places, she stopped short of putting speakers throughout the house. She would need to pull out drywall to really do it properly and this wasn't her house. She'd see if she could get Logan and Dick to approve some technical upgrades at a later date. She'd ply them with alcohol at some point and get it in writing.

"Done!" She yells out, arms spread wide so they can observe her magnum opus.

Veronica and Logan tramp down the stairs and Dick re-enters from the deck.

"Done? It looks the same?" Logan tells her sitting down on the couch, Veronica and Dick follow suit, "I mean speakers sure but I don't see how that can be traded for hauling all your crap."

Mac puts a hand to her heart and powers up the system, "Shhh baby he didn't mean it." She coos to the system, running a hand along the flat screen. She takes the remote and sits down on the couch between Veronica and Dick and allows her hard work to speak for itself.

The interface is simple and she flits between consoles with ease, scrolls though her music collection, starting Pet Sounds, she can see Dick smile out of the corner of her eye. His body is close to hers, unlike Veronica he hadn't shifted in order to give her the space she required, his leg was almost right up against hers, the heat from him was rolling off in waves. Surely from the sun he'd been drowning in rather than some sort of body chemistry thing.

"Okay that's pretty good but what about movies?" Logan asks he's leaning against the arm of the couch looking at her like he knows something. It's a Veronica look and she finds she likes the look even less on Logan.

She presses a different button and the menu for the tv and movies she has stored on her hard drive pop up in beautiful folders with the option of trailers. He's suitably impressed.

"So when do we get our stuff on this thing?" He asks.

"Give me your media and I will make magic." She tells him and in fact them all because she really has no desire to explain any of the back door workings of it even if it's simple. It's simple to her, but she doesn't want to take the magic out of it for them, or make herself seem less of a genius.

Veronica gets up from the couch and starts heading to the door.

"Where are you going?"

Veronica makes a big show of being put upon, "To shlep. Come on Logan, Dick you too."

"What?" Dick cries out from beside her moving slightly to look at Veronica and succeeding in rubbing his leg against hers. She can feel a heat pool in her gut that is completely unwelcome, "I didn't make a deal with her to move her shit. You made your own bed."

Logan gets off the couch and follows Veronica, "Come on Dick I'll buy you something pretty."

They are left alone in the room for a moment before Dick pushes himself up off the couch, "So I give you my movies and boxsets and shit and you magic them onto the tv?" He asks all she does is nod, looking up at him noticing not for the first time how pretty he is, "cool." He heads towards the door to help with her boxes.

"I'm not putting any porn on the tv computer." she warns him and he stops in the middle of a step to turn back at her.

"What? Come on big screen porn? Like you don't want that too. Don't lie to yourself Mackie darling, it's always the quiet ones." he tells her pointing at her.

Before she can think too hard about what she's saying the words fly out of her mouth, "Then you must be dead weight in the sack." she watches his eyes widen, her whole body contracts, way to go Cindy insult Dick on his skills in bed, he only owns the house you live in. He smiles brightly for a moment, like he's proud of her or something.

"My sweet Cindy, just say the word." he tells her before disappearing out the door to help with her boxes.

She wonders briefly what exactly that word would be, if it'd be _yes_ or something dirty or something completely random. Rutabaga? Sega? Oh god why is she even thinking about that.


	3. Alarm Clock: MAC

**A/N:** Thanks for all the reviews they make my day I have a list of ridiculous things I want to happen between Dick and Mac I actually really like these short chapters it seems so much more manageable. Hope it doesn't leave you wanting too bad.

**Alarm Clock: MAC**

She's been lying in her bed wide awake for a good hour and a half.

She's considering moving her bedroom into the basement, far away from the beautiful view and the sunlight and fresh air.

Because for an hour and a half Dick's alarm clock has been buzzing like a car alarm. Over and over and over. He hasn't even bothered to hit snooze. As if the giggling and moaning from Vapid McSlutty-Pants all night hadn't been enough. If this is what Saturday mornings where going to be like around here she was absolutely moving into the basement.

Three minutes. She was going to give him three full minutes. That was totally reasonable.

If it didn't stop in three minutes she was going in there and throwing the god damn thing out the window! She didn't care if they were mid-flagrante that noise was ending!

Three minutes passed and neither the noise nor her rage had subsided. She threw the blankets off her bed and stormed out of the safety of her room.

She hardly paused at his bedroom door, she flung the thing open slamming it into the wall loudly and stormed over to the bedside keeping her eyes on the task at hand rather then the expanse of exposed skin, some of which didn't belong to Dick.

She grabs his alarm clock and rips it out of the wall and the sudden sound of everything on the night stand falling to the floor seems to finally wake him up.

He sits up quickly his eyes wide at the image of Mac in his room.

"Mac what are you-" he doesn't get to finish because she's pissed! She is not a morning person.

"If you're not going to properly use your alarm clock you can't have it!" Her voice is shrill and she's sure it's never made that sound before. She storms away from the bed and rips open the balcony door and throws the thing as far as she can where is crashes angrily onto the rocks of the beach.

She turns back to him her chest still heaving with anger and she eyes the girl in the bed beside him, blonde, stacked and statuesque of course, she's staring at her eyes wide and worried and hands grasping at fabric to cover herself, "if you're going to have _company_ Dick remember to turn off your alarm." She can feel a heat in her skin but with clenched teeth she leaves the bedroom, she pauses in the doorway and turns back in for a moment, "you might also what to lock your door."

She slams the door and when she turns around Logan and Veronica are in their bedroom door looking confused.

"He wouldn't turn his alarm off." She tells them easily and then goes back into her room where she locks the door and climbs back into bed.

God she hates mornings. As if the sounds of him...and her...she had really just hoped she wouldn't have to see what the girl looked like cause Christ she was pretty...but what did it matter Dick probably didn't even remember her name. He sure as hell had been very careful about not letting any names slip past his mouth last night.

She bit the insides of her mouth and tried to focus on anything but Dick's chosen skill set.


	4. Alarm Clock: Dick

**Alarm Clock: DICK**

"Who was that?" The blond whose name starts with a W asks in awe and worry, clearly wondering if she had facilitated some infidelity.

"My room mate." He tells her simply, blinking quickly trying to get rid of the image of Mac's pyjama's out of his head. It wasn't very nice of her storm into his bedroom in what was basically underwear and a oversized band t-shirt and not request to join him and maybe even W in some morning delight. The movement of the shirt against her hips as she threw his alarm clock out the fucking window was driving him to distraction.

His alarm clock.

His alarm clock!

He rips the blankets away from him pulls on some underwear and storms out of his room.

He whips the door open so quickly that the door handle embeds itself in the wall.

Veronica and Logan are standing in their open doorway directly across from him watching with confused wide eyes.

"What happened?" Logan ventures.

"She threw my alarm clock out the fucking window."

"Shit man..." Logan's voice is a whisper and it's lost in the heart thumping rage pulsating through him.

He gets down the hall to Mac's room and twists the handle but nothing to happens, seems she took her own advise. That bitch locked her door. He slams his hands into the door.

"Get out here Ghostworld!" He yells shaking the door.

"Go away I'm asleep." She calls back and it boils his blood.

"Bullshit get out here!" his fists slam into the door again and it bows against his will.

She makes a loud fake snore noise and he storms away from the door. Somewhere in this house there has to be a god damn screw driver, sledge hammer, axe, he's not picky. He was sure he saw Mr. Mars leave a tool box when he was there earlier in the week.

"Calm down man." Logan stands in the middle of the hall his hands out in surrender his voice is too calm and he knows this stance, this is his _get Dick to calm down_ trick well it's not going to work this time. This is too far, this isn't just some prank this was different and it burned in him wrong.

"Get out of the way man." Even he's surprised by how heated and even his voice is. It's a tone that he's never used before and Veronica's eyes get wide and she shrinks out of the hall and he wonders briefly if it's the way Cass sounded.

"We'll get you a new clock."

"Cass got me that clock." He tells them and with the name out in the world it just seems to collapse his rage in on itself. It was the last thing Cassidy ever got him. It had that weird light that simulated the sun coming up and he had pretuned it to his favourite station, the one with that sluty chick that dj's (she has shit taste in music but her voice is amazing.)

"What?" A soft scared sounding voice pulls his attention to the end of the hall. Mac is standing there in her pyjama's still her hand on the dented door. Her eyes are wide and wet and something grabs a hold of his insides and squeezes. He pulls his eyes away from her careful not to let them fall down her legs.

He retreats into his room and the girl is fully dressed save for the shoe in her hand.

"I'm just going to..." She points at the door and he nods.

He watches her leave from the edge of his bed and the moment she tugs the door out of the wall and closes it behind her he falls backwards. He just sinks into the bed and lays there for god knows how long.

It seems like hours later there's a knock on the door. It's probably Logan, checking to see if he's okay, which he obviously isn't but he'll lie even thou Logan will see right through him. It's the way they work, they are both getting very good at pretending that the other isn't a broken mess. One day it'll be true, but it isn't today.

He opens the door quickly and Mac takes a step back.

In her arms is his alarm clock.

"How?" He moves to the side and let's her in the room. She goes directly to the bedside table she had so unceremoniously ripped it from.

"The pieces were pretty close together." She tells him leaning over the whole thing to plug the alarm clock back in and Christ her ass is still amazing, "I'm good with electronics." she supplies with a shrug.

He takes a step closer to her and finds his blood boiling again for a completely different reason. He wants to reach out and grab a hold on her hip, press his fingers hard into her skin.

She stands up having successfully plugged in the clock and sits on his bed, she doesn't seem to notice how much closer he had gotten, "sorry it looks a little Frankenstein-y." She pulls her legs up and folds her arms around them and she looks so small.

He sits down next to her, "thanks." He's sure it's the first time she's ever heard him say that but he really means it.

He moves to touch her but she's off the bed again in a flash and leaning against the window across from him, "I'm not a morning person Dick, and the walls thin." She tells him like she's trying to apologise without actually saying she's sorry.

"How thin?" He asks wondering if she'd heard any of last nights escapades.

Her face immediately flushes and she can't quiet look at him, "thin." She tells him and walks away.

"Not such dead weight after all hey Mac." He calls after her and all she does is turn a deeper shade of red and scamper from the room. He runs a hand along the alarm clock and knows that he can never get rid of it now.


	5. Silk and Lace: Dick

**Silk and Lace: Dick**

* * *

It's just not fair. He's not a rocket scientist how is he supposed to figure out all those god damn buttons and dials and shit.

He's had maids his whole life, he throws his clothes on the floor in the morning and when he comes home at night they've always just been crisp and clean and back where they belong.

Now he has to do his own laundry.

Logan says since they're proper adults now with a house and everything that they should know how to do their own laundry. Logan says adult but it sure as hell feels like poor to him. Plus Logan's opinion shouldn't even count on the matter because he's positive that Ronnie helps him with his.

So he's figured out the very basics of the whole thing by casually walking past the laundry room when everyone else is using it. He's got his clothes in the stupid color coded piles on the floor but honestly he's not sure quiet where to go from here.

Seriously he's getting a pledge to do this shit for him from now on.

"Fuck it." He throws a bunch of clothes in the washer throws in the amount of soap the container suggests, thank you soap company, and twists dials and pushes buttons until the machine jumps to life. If everything goes to hell he'll just by new clothes. It's not like he's never done that before.

He makes his way upstairs and everyone else is in the living room.

"You look great Mac, everything's going to be fine." Ronnie tells her enthusiastically, the pep in her voice reminds him of before Lily died. Mac is pacing the length of the living room in a dress and heels her hands running through her hair turning it into a fuzzy mane rather than smooth lines. Logan keeps pausing and unpausing his video game as Mac walks in front of the tv.

She does look great and his stomach tightens when he realises why.

"You got a hot date Mackers." He asks sitting down heavily next to Logan, his legs stretched out into her path.

"Some professor's aid asked her out." Logan shrugs and throws his controller down. He really doesn't like how focused Logan's suddenly become in his response.

It's just a date, it's not like she's going to come back married or something, not that he'd really care. She turns away from him and continues her pace in the other direction and Dick decides that her dress should be burnt, it's somehow shorter in the back and shows the tops of stockings as she walks.

"What if he thinks I'm boring?" Mac asks Veronica and it is clear that she has entered _freaking the fuck out_ territory. Dick doesn't really understand it and by the look on Logan's face neither does he. How could anyone find Mac boring? She helps her PI bestie solve crimes in her spare time for fucks sake.

"Then he's an idiot." Veronica confirms she stands up and grabs a hold of Mac's bare arms to stop her pacing, "he asked you out he obviously likes you and everyone in this room can see why."

Mac's eyes land on him, eyes locked for a brief oxygen free moment before they are torn away at the sound of the doorbell.

"Oh my god oh my god." Mac practically vibrates and Logan pushes him off the couch.

"What the hell dude."

"Go get the door." Logan rolls his eyes like he can't believe Dick is so stupid. He has to admit he likes this plan, he's pretty interested to see what kind of total nerd Mac is dating this time.

He opens the door and feels instantly sick.

"Cam." The name falls from Dick's mouth like it's covered in acid. It's Cameron Goode. He's rush chair of the Omega's, of course Mac would pick a rival fraternity, he's not only good looking Dick's not even sure he could take him in a fight.

"Hey Dick, is Mac here?" He peaks around Dick into the house and somewhere in the distance he can hear the washing machine buzz.

"No." He tells him simply, mouth a firm line, eyes narrow and closes the door on the guy.

"Oh my god Dick!" Mac yells rushing to the door, pushing him away, "go do your laundry." She tells him heatedly opening the door back up. Cam is unfortunately still there, "Hi, I'm so sorry about Dick." She smiles softly at him nervously. She grabs something off the side table and leaves without even looking at him.

He turns away from the door and finds that Logan is standing in the hall looking at him, arms crossed, eyebrow raised.

"What!" Dick pushes passed Logan and storms back down to the laundry room.

"You're jealous." Logan tells him too simply because it sure as hell doesn't feel that simple.

"I just don't like Cameron, he's a bitch." He tells him pulling open the washing machine's lid. Everything still appears to be clothes. He smiles a little at that, some of the hot lead in his gut cooling.

"Don't worry dude, that frat boy puts one finger on Mac she doesn't want and Veronica will introduce him to Mr. Sparky. I'm positive that's why we are oh so conveniently going on a date tonight." He smiles brightly at him and moves in to pat him on the shoulder, "We got this man." he tells him calmly before he leaves.

Shortly after the front door closes again and the house is oddly quiet, the only sound the tumbling of the dryer and the spin of the washer.

Dick goes through the house turning on a movie as he goes to fill the house with the sound of people and the occasional monster.

The buzzer of the dryer goes off and he takes a basket down to transport his laundry. He's pulling out handfulls of cotton when his fingers grab onto something not right.

Frilly, and soft... too soft.

He pulls the item out of the mass of his t-shirts and drops the whole basket to the floor.

Black lace on royal blue satin, panties, those boy cut things tom boys like Mac love.

Christ he's holding Mac's underwear and it sure isn't hard to picture her in them, he swallows hard because these are the kinds of things that come in sets, full sets with those little strappy bits that connect to stockings... stockings like Mac was wearing today.

"Fuck." He closes his eyes tightly his head falling forward to slam against the dryer, "Fuck!"


	6. Silk and Lace: Mac

**Silk and Lace: MAC**

* * *

Cameron had picked her up in a sports car. In fact it matched Dick's in everything but color, and honestly she thought the car looked much better in white than in the fire engine red Cameron had. Dick's looked like the _Mache Five_ whereas Cameron's looked like a hot wheels toy her brother had gotten in a happy meal once. She decided it probably wouldn't be a great start to tell her date that.

"You look amazing." He told her his voice had a slight breathless quality that made her blush. He leaned across the centre console slightly and pushed a stray hair behind her ear.

"Thanks...you too." She couldn't deny it, Cameron Goode was very good looking, in the kind of league she had always assumed she just wasn't in. It's not that she had dated anyone that looked bad or anything, they had always just been more adorable than hot. At most nerd hot and it was hard to deny with his strong shoulders and sharp features that Cameron was anything but hot hot, like proper hot.

They talked amicably about class and computers and basic collegiate activities and she was starting to relax.

"You're vegan right?" He confirmed pulling up to a fancy looking restaurant. She was glad she'd chosen this dress not only did it compliment her eyes and dark hair but it was fancy enough to be at home in a restaurant like that.

"Yeah, that's not a problem is it?"

Cameron smiled brightly at her, "not at all, you can try and convince me of your cause during dinner." He gets out of the car and before she can fully open the car door he's opening it for her and holding out a hand to help her out. She's thankful for it because the sports car is crazy low and she's sure she flashed the tops of her stockings getting in.

"I've always wondered what exactly the attraction to the vegan life was." He keeps smiling at her and it's a nice smile but it doesn't pull at anything in her like she knows it should, seems a little practised not like the natural smiles that just seem to fall into place on Dick.

Oh god.

She shakes her head slightly as she follows Cameron to the table, she is on a date with a smart and good looking guy she doesn't have some crazy history with, focus girl! You haven't gotten any action in months. He's a frat boy this should be easy. She had put her fancy underwear on for this after all.

Shouldn't he be trying harder to see what's under her dress?

Then again she has a feeling that Cameron has never had to try hard for that kind of thing.

* * *

They were halfway through dinner when a topic she hadn't been expecting came up.

"So how exactly did you end up living with Casablancas?" He asks and she almost chokes on her coconut based dessert.

"What?" She had always been under the impression that you weren't supposed to talk about anyone of the opposite sex on a first date, or even a second date. As far as the other person was supposed to be concerned she'd lived in a nunnery until he'd come along. He was violating date protocol.

"Dick?"

"Dick's best friend is dating my best friend." She offers hoping that this will end all conversation of Dick. She doesn't like the topic, he's a gateway topic that leads to Cassidy and she is not willing to kill all chances of taking this Adonis home and having Dick have to listen to sex sounds this time.

That is not why she wants to have sex with him! She looks up at him with wide eyes.

"Logan Echolls? Isn't he dating that Mars girl? The one that got the Pi Sigs out of the trouble with the tribunal? And solved the Dean's murder? And had that sex tape."

"It wasn't technically a _sex _tape." Mac defends. It's been a year and a half since that whole Castle debacle surely at least three students have had naked _happenings_ get out by now. In fact she knows for certain that at least one has. Her birthday present to Veronica last year had been a surprise adult film of a certain Mr. Sorokin. He'd been very popular.

Man Veronica was right, who in there right mind could think she was boring, she's circulated sex 'tapes' of _made_ men. Sex tapes, living with Dick, breaking into Kane software hard drives, the things she did for Veronica Mars.

"How are you friends with people like that?"

"People like what exactly?" She asks setting her spoon down firmly on the table and giving him her firm attention.

"Unstable trouble makers." he supplies, "selfish idiots, adrenaline junkies."

"You don't even know them." she tells him surprised at him, he seemed so open minded but perhaps his mind was only open to academic theory and not people, "and you don't know me."

"Yeah I do, you're a sweet, intelligent, modest women, from a blue collar family."

"My first boyfriend was a millionaire. I bought my car with money I had fleeced from my peers with a purity test scam. And I have done plenty of amoral things to help Veronica put the bad guys away. So you don't know me and you certainly don't know my friends." She stands up quickly from the table, "We're done here." she tells him firmly daring him to say another word because no matter how good looking this man is and how willing he had seemed to go to bed with her she was suddenly very much not interested.

It wasn't worth it.

She pulls out her wallet throws a couple large bills on the table, revelling in the wide eyed surprise that settled in his features, and turns sharply on her heel to walk home.

* * *

It takes her a half hour to walk home.

She'd considered calling Veronica and Logan but knew they were having a date night and she honestly didn't want to call Dick to pick her up. She was sure he'd come get her which was a surprising realisation but the questions as to why he was picking her up from her date where just more than she wanted to deal with now, or maybe even ever.

She's careful opening the door hoping to be quiet enough to slip in unnoticed.

She makes it all the way to her bedroom, hand on her doorknob.

"Strike out?" Dick asks leaning against his door frame, something blue and black in his hand that looks oddly familiar.

"It's none of your business." She spits back pulling off her shoes and tossing them into her room.

"I bet you would have done better if you'd remembered to wear you're fancy underwear."

She sighs, her choice of clothing had nothing to do with not getting lucky, She had chose not to continue her date. Plus she _was_ wearing her fancy underwear, the ones that matched her purple and black bra. They were lucky...supposedly.

"My choice of underwear had nothing to do with the fact that I've returned alone."

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure Cameron would have crawled across glass for you if he'd caught a glimpse of these." Dick holds out her underwear and the way his fingers swipe across the material brings that unwelcome heat once again rushing to her gut.

"Oh my god! Where you in my room!" She screams running at him trying to grab at her underwear, those where new!

With a laugh he holds the flimsy thing above his head, "You might want to take better care with what you leave in the dryer." he drops them and they land on her head.

She slams her fist into his chest and storms back to her room but the idea of him having the last word boils her blood so she stops before she slams the door. He's standing down the hall rubbing his chest a bright natural smile on his face, soft laughter tumbling out of him.

"Besides I wore the purple set tonight." she tells him violently and she watches as his eyes get wide and the laughter turns to choking and his face actually flushes. She closes the door tightly proud of herself, who else could say that they've made Dick Casablancas blush like a school girl?

**A/N: **Thanks for all the reviews and support. It really means a lot. So it's long weekend so I'm hoping to pump out at least one more chapter. hope you liked it.


	7. Afternoon Nap: MAC

**Afternoon nap: MAC**

* * *

She pauses at the door to the house. Veronica and Logan are still at school which means that she'll be alone...with Dick for at least an hour. Something she's not sure she can handle with the ridiculous amount of tension between them.

Tension between her and Dick isn't really a new thing, everything between them had been was stained with Cassidy...until now. This tension seemed to have nothing at all to do with the younger Casablancas, and everything to do with what Dick kept in his pants.

Taking a shaking breath she enters the house.

Everything is silent.

Dick quiet? Impossible, he has to be out somewhere. She's noticed that he can't be anywhere quiet, when she's come home to him alone, he always has either music or the television on, trying to fill up the house with the noise of people.

It's a little sad really but she tries not to think about the possible reasons that he needs the noise and just relaxes into the fact that she's got the house all to herself because being alone with Dick is hell.

It's just not the kind of hell she always assumed it would be. She climbs the stairs towards her bedroom and thinks about the strange kind of hell Dick has become, all pretty and strong and gentle fingers, sex sounds through the wall and too long glances across rooms.

It had been a couple weeks since her date with Cameron and the sight of his fingers sliding along the silk of her underwear rushes blood places she doesn't want it to rush. She had sent him into a choking blushing mess and she was oddly proud of herself but she couldn't tell anyone about it. The idea of letting Veronica in on the secret sexual one-up-men-ship she had going on with Dick was just not a viable option, and Logan kept giving her those looks like he knew what was going on that she absolutely hated and she absolutely refused to let him think he was right.

Her bedroom door is open slightly and she finds it odd, she always closes her door, a habit she's had since her brother had started to walk. She pushes the door open further half expecting some knife wielding maniac to be in there. It's the kind of stuff she imagines is bound to happen at some point now that she lives with Veronica and Logan but there is no maniac knife wielding or otherwise.

Just Dick.

He's laying on her bed, just flopped over the bed on his back napping in the sun like a god damn cat. On top of the covers his head by the foot of her bed and Christ he looks comfortable, like he belongs there.

Her entire body freezes for a moment, everything in her tightens and twists because he's drowning in the sun and looks frakking fantastic, his hair like sunshine and she moves towards the bed...she has every right after all it's her bed. She climbs onto the bed and swings her leg over his body keeping herself off his body. The heat is just coming off him in waves and it feels better than she wants to admit even to herself.

Biting her lip she reaches out slowly to his hair, she's wanted to know what his hair has felt like since he sat in front of her in seventh grade Spanish. She had convinced herself that it would be rough with all the salt water, that it'd be horribly disappointing so when her fingers finally touch it eight years later she lets out a breath she hadn't known she was holding because it's made of silk. It's like some goblin spun his hair out of sunshine and gold and magic and that is just not fair at all because he's rich and good looking and has magical hair? Where was the justice and his skin it's frakking flawless and her fingers are hovering above the soft looking skin at his neck.

"What are you doing?" Logan's voice is soft and she jumps slightly and realises just how ridiculous this must look, her straddling an unconscious Dick.

"This isn't what it looks like." She tells him, climbing off of Dick and standing next to her bed, "I was just going to smother him." She tells him and knows Logan thinks she's full of crap, he can probably hear her heart thumping from the doorway.

"With air? You were doing a great job."

"Shut up." She hisses and pushes past him into the hall.

"What's going on Mac?"

"I just came home and he's napping on my bed like a stupid cat." She tells him firmly pointing at her open door, "What am I supposed to do?"

"One option would have been to wake him up?" He offers and she hates him a little bit because she didn't even think of waking him up to yell at him, her mind went on vacation and her body on autopilot. Logan is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and a smug smile on his face, like he's winning some sort of game.

She turns away from him sharply and goes directly into Dick's bedroom.

Logan follows her and watches from the door as she kicks off her shoes and tosses her sweater across the room.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to have a nap, see how much he likes it." She grumbles and climbs onto his bed. Which is soft and warm and feels really kind of great.

"I'm pretty sure I know how he'll like it." Logan counters but leaves the room shaking his head, she can hear him retreat to the safety of the main floor.

It's unbelievably easy to get comfortable on Dick's bed, all the bedding smells like the ocean and boy soap and that weird smell he has that she's positive is all pheromones. She settles into the middle of the bed, her arms wrapped around his pillow and just falls into the best sleep she's had in a while.


	8. Afternoon Nap: Dick

**Afternoon Nap: Dick**

* * *

The alarm on Dick's watch goes off and it pulls him back to conciousness. He stretches out on Mac's bed enjoying the smell of clean linen, hot wires and honey that is Mac.

Logan's due home any minute and he has to get out of Mac's room before he gets caught, he doesn't think he can stand that stupid look on Logan's face if he gets caught in here, it's not like he's stealing her underwear or anything, he's just taking a nap in the sun and her bed just happens to get the best sun at this time of day.

It's not his fault, blame the sun, or the architect or whatever, it's like they wanted him to sleep on her bed.

It's not like she's in it when he climbs on or anything, he doesn't even go under the covers for Christ sakes.

He straightens her comforter and leaves the room, careful to close her door. He can clearly hear the sounds of Logan swearing at a video game downstairs.

"fuck." he hisses, he's probably down there waiting for Dick to make his appearance so he can lay into him about the surprisingly stalkery behaviour he's developed. And Logan's right, he's Dick Casablancas, it's not like girls don't just fall into his bed or anything, he doesn't need this, doesn't need to get into Mac's pants.

Course he doesn't _need _ to, he just really really _wants_ to, to run his fingers across that silk and lace while it's filled with her, to put his mouth on her skin...fuck.

He goes into his bedroom to put off Logan's taunting for just a little longer. Logan's full of shit anyway. He wasn't jealous of Cameron, he isn't jealous of any of the guys Mac has been with, why would he be, he knows they don't really mean anything to her, they're a means to an end, even he can see that. She doesn't have actual feelings for those nerds, they've just been Cassidy replacements, guys whose blood heat and rush at her touch proving to her that she wasn't the problem.

How is he the only one that see's it. Is it just because it takes one to know one? That he can see all the Cassidy induced mess because he's a mess of it too?

There's a soft little noise that draws his attention to the bed and fuck. He looks around the room, is this some kind of joke? He opens the closet doors, sure that Logan is in there waiting to jump out, checks the en suite.

Nothing.

He goes to the door and closes it softly.

It's not his birthday is it?

He swallows hard and moves to the bedside.

He reaches out and his fingers land on her cheek, hot soft skin, yep she's actually there.

Fuck she looks great on his bed, her hair a mess across the fabric, an arm holding his pillow crushed against her body, a leg thrown over it.

He runs his fingers slowly down her neck, following the curve of her shirt. She pushes up into his touch and he has to sit down before he falls. She arches up into his touch and he bites his lip because it is ridiculously easy to imagining her arching from something else.

He leans down, the pillow keeping their bodies apart his mouth inches from her exposed neck. He just wants to taste her skin, he wants to know what was so special about the feel of her that made his sociopathic brother actually _feel_. What about her taste and touch that made him look like he was untouchable.

His hot breath on her pulse makes her moan softly in her sleep and it tightens his guts, all his insides twist and tighten and beg for her.

His tongue hot and wet swipes a wide path across her throat and he can see her fingers grip on the bedding tightly and he can feel the moan in her throat.

"Honey I'm home!" Veronica's voice rips across the house and Mac is pulled from sleep and sits up roughly and he's pushed off his own god damn bed in the process.

He sits against the wall of windows staring at her as she sits up staring at him. She looks guilty and he's sure his expression matches.

"Stop sleeping in my room." She tells him but there's an odd quality to her voice like she doesn't really want him to listen to her.

"Start sleeping in mine." He responds and manages a self confident smirk. His heart is thumping against his ribs at the sight of her all flushed and breathless on his bed. It's a sight he wants to see again, over and over again.

She bites her lip but doesn't respond at all. She just crawls out of his bed and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

He drops his head into his hands and knows exactly why Cassidy used to look like that, she takes fucking electric.

* * *

**A/N:** Okay so these ones are a little short but I hope you like them anyway. I'm trying to pop some chapters out before I head out on vacation. I also finally finished my Bad Education (tv) fiction so if you've seen Bad Education check it out over on my AO3 account (same name) and if you haven't seen it...what are you still doing here? It's hilarious. Love you guys


	9. Greek Letters: MAC

**Greek Letters: MAC**

* * *

She's going to be late for a lecture, this is the problem with not living on campus any more if she slept in at her dorm most she'd have to do is run across the quad in her pyjama pants with a pop tart in her mouth. Now she had to get completely dressed and drive all the way there, and hope to god that the traffic was light.

And it's raining.

Of frakkin course.

She looks around the front hall, she doesn't have time for this crap.

She grabs the first sweater she finds, pulls it over her head and pulls up the hood.

She's swimming in it but whatever, she just rolls up the sleeves and locks the door, runs to her car and peels out of the drive way.

The traffic is light, she finds a parking space near the correct building and books it down the hall.

Settling into the back of the lecture hall she opens up her notebook. The girl in the seat behind her, in her bright pink Theta sweater is giving her the eye.

"What?" She whispers at her turning slightly, she doesn't want to turn too far away as Prof Richer writes he's talking into the board like always.

"I heard Dick had a girlfriend but I didn't actually believe it." There's an acidic disbelief to her tone that Mac didn't even think was possible.

"What are you talking about?"

The Theta pinches the shoulder of the grey sweater and turns back to her notebook but not without throwing up an eyebrow and giving a twist to her pretty pink mouth that chills Mac's blood.

Mac looks down at herself there emblazoned on her chest are three Greek letters and below them in a ribbon of green it declares her Beer Pong Champion 2006

Swearing under her breath she pulls at the sweater and there across her back is CASABLANCAS. She'd just assumed it had been Logan's sweater, he left his stuff everywhere or at the very least not something with a name on it.

She pulled at the collar and hoped that the sweater would just swallow her whole or something. She didn't think she could handle having Dick's name on her like this. Like she belonged to him or something, like he belonged to her...

On the other hand it was a surprisingly comfortable sweater. She wondered if it was so soft due to wear. She'd seen him in the sweater a dozen times this month alone. He'd toss it on after surfing and the salt water and sweat had worked its way into the fabric, a faint oceany smell and that not quiet... that smell that just refused to be labelled as anything other than Dick washing over her as she pulled at the fabric.

It somehow heated and cooled her blood at the same time. Something she didn't want to think too much about really because it was bordering on those girly flicks that Parker made her watch last year.

And it was kind of cool in the lecture hall anyway...and her next class was in another wing she had to access from outside...surely there wouldn't be any more flack. It's not like Dick was _that_ popular or infamous? maybe that was more fitting. One theta's snide comments, which were honestly more about Dick than her anyway, she could deal with that if it meant warmth and comfort.

* * *

"Hey slut!" The call rang out across the quad and Mac looked around for whoever this obvious slut must be. She had heard girls call each other that in good humour and affection and this most certainly wasn't that kind of call out.

She didn't really have time to witness a bitch fight but if Veronica and Logan heard she'd missed out on such drama they'd never forgive her, drama vampires the pair of them.

People were looking at her.

She was sure of it.

And her stomach dropped when she realised that the_ slut _in question was apparently her.

She slowly turned around to see a wiry bottled blonde girl standing a little ways away from her, hands on hips, the theta from her morning lecture slightly behind her.

Christ was this about _Dick_?

"Are you serious?" Mac asked her tone flat and dark. A tone she'd heard Veronica use a hundred thousand times and that apparently she had acquired through osmosis.

"Yeah." The blonde is red in the face and storms towards her and she bites down on her back teeth but doesn't move a step, she's not in high school any more, she isn't going to let some Alpha bitch intimidate her, "you can't really think you're his type." She hisses and the funny thing is she's actually pretty sure she is.

The looks and the weird crazy sexual tension between them? Yeah. Yeah she is Dick's type.

"Upset that he's into smart girls now?" Is what comes out of her mouth and its dark and condescending and she can feel her mouth twist around the words and she's surprised because she should just say that she's not with Dick at all, that they're room mates, that this sweater business is a misunderstanding.

The girl growls. She actually growls, like an animal.

"Or maybe it's just that he doesn't fuck animals..." She adds, and adds in a stage whisper, "That's just a razing rumour sweetie." there's a snicker running through the crowd and the girls eyes get wide and her face gets somehow redder. Mac pats her on the shoulder, "run along now."

She's not sure how she didn't see it coming but the girls fist slams into her cheek.

Mac staggers back and sees red. How dare this girl hit her! Just for dating Dick! A thing she's not even doing!

A rage in her just explodes and before she even knows what she's doing the blondes on the ground holding her stomach with one hand and her eye with the other and her knuckles hurt like a mother.

"Don't talk to me again." Mac spits on the ground near the girl, it's red, blood, "and do yourself a favour and go back to your original colour, all that peroxide's gone to your brain."

Mac turns on her heel and starts her journey back towards her next class. She doesn't like violence, doesn't like fights but her father had made her go to self-defence classes after the whole _grad night_ debacle, even thou she had told him time and again that being able to toss a mugger over her shoulder wouldn't have stopped what had happened to her.

She'd gone anyway, mostly to keep her mind off of things.

Her father would be proud to know she'd finally actually used what that old persian guy had taught her.

She could feel her pulse in her cheek and decided to stop at the cafeteria to get some ice.

* * *

A/N: I just love scrapper!Mac hope you do too. stay tuned for some Dick...lol dirty


	10. Greek Letters: Dick

**Greek Letters: Dick**

* * *

He was in the cafeteria when his phone went off.

Chip had sent him a video.

He looked around the room before opening the file, last time it had been porn. Something Ronnie still hadn't forgiven him for. He wasn't sure what her problem was with it. It's not like she had anything to be ashamed off. Her stock had gone way up anyway. She'd gone from freshman busy body to smoking sex kitten over night. _Your welcome._

It was a chick fight in the quad. Chip had been close enough to get some sound.

"Nice."

_"Upset that he's into smart girls now?"_ the smaller girl said, she was Mac shaped, had that same dark hair and acidic tone to her voice. She was wearing a grey and green Pi Sig sweater.

He had a sweater just like it. It was the beer pong tourny sweater. Which mean the guy who was into smart girls now was either, Kurt's girlfriend or Morris. He couldn't for the life of him think what girl self respecting or otherwise would declare to the world that she was_ with_ Bandit.

The girl said something about the boy in not fucking animals and the blonde looked crazed.

A moment later and the blonde sent a fist into the brunette's face. The girl staggered back and as she twisted in reaction to the hit, the back of her sweater came into view.

CASABLANCAS

That was his sweater! That was _his_ beer pong sweater! How did they have that! He knew exactly where he had left it, bunched up on the bench by the front door. Had this person been in his house! Was she a stalker?

His stomach tightened when he realised the Mac shaped girl wasn't just shaped like his room mate but _was_ his room mate!

Christ Mac had gotten into a chick fight! She was a stupid pacifist, she was going to get her ass handed to her.

He looked at the background of the video, it was the north quad, he could get there pretty quickly. He stood from his seat to make his way there when a flash of motion on the video made him have to replay and he watched as Mac took a step in and slammed her fist into the blondes stomach.

"What the shit-" he whispered sitting down hard in his chair. His eyes glued to Mac's movements.

A second later as the girl was doubled over Mac's tiny little fist was sent right up under the girl and into her eye sending the blond on her ass.

Mac stood there heaving for breath her chest moving the greek letters up and down. Mac spat blood down at the girl.

_"...peroxide's gone to your brain."_ Mac told her and turned away.

Dick closed the video and forwarded it to half his contact list. He had a rule that he always shared the love when good porn and chick fights were concerned.

A text from Chip had apparently followed up the video.

_why didn't you tell me you were dating the computer chick? I could have won the pool, we could have split the pot!_

_what pool?_ he responds and its less than a minute before his phone buzzes with a response.

_the whole frat has a pool going on who your secret girlfriend is. Guess she's not really a secret any more hey._

Secret girlfriend? Christ he was the reason Mac had gotten into a brawl. How could he justify a relationship with her if all it was going to do for her was get her in bitch fights with the numerous unnamed he'd fucked and forgotten.

Wait a second.

Relationship?

Like a real adult relationship?

Is that what he wanted from Mac? That was impossible. He shook his head. He hated those, the kind of relationships where you remember her favourite movie (8 1/2) and favourite song (no surprises and Kanye although she didn't think anyone knew that) where he'd remember that she didn't eat anything that came from an animal, even milk (which was stupid).

Fuck he already knew that stuff about her. Without really having to think about it. That wasn't a big deal she was a sort of friend, he knew that shit about Logan and he didn't want Logan to be his girlfriend.

The cafeteria got quiet, that quiet that only ever happens when the topic of gossip enters a room. A sound he recognised all too well. He looks up and there's Mac at the drink cooler, putting ice into a paper cup.

He went to her, the cafeteria getting all the more quiet to hear the transaction.

"You're getting slobber on my stuff." He tells her firmly as he comes up beside her. She has the string of the sweater in her mouth, chewing it like he's seen her do frequently to her own sweaters.

"And?" She replies and her voice is dark like she's challenging him to do something about it. He wonders if adrenaline from the fight is still crashing across her small frame.

"Who said you could wear my sweater." She turns to him fully and he can see her face properly. Her cheek a bright red in her normally pale face and it twists his gut because its his fault. He takes the paper cup from her and places the icy thing against the swelling.

She hisses at the touch but doesn't move away from him.

"It was raining." She tells him like that's all the reason she needs to steel his favourite sweater and parade around campus with his name all over her. Like she belongs to him. Getting her smell all over it, like the house doesn't smell enough like hot wires and clean linen and honey. His pillow still smells of her, not that he's tried all that hard to get rid of the smell.

Everything is quiet, she's just looking up at him with wide brown eyes and its twisting and tightening his insides. The string is still in her mouth and he reaches out and takes a hold of it, his fingers tracing her bottom lip as he pulls it slowly out of her mouth.

"Dick-" she starts his name sounds amazing in her mouth all soft and dark like it means something.

"Yeah..." He leans down on instinct and watches as her tongue darts across her lips. Fuck this is it. Right here in the cafeteria.

"I-" whatever she was going to say is lost in the blast of hall and oats from her pocket. She jumps back a step, removing herself from the 'danger zone'. With one hand she grabs the cup from him and with the other answers her phone.

He stands back up to his full height and looks down at her. She's still looking at him but there's something in her dark eyes he can't read.

"Hey Veronica." She speaks into the phone.

Of fucking course.

She should add cockblock to her business cards for christ sakes.

_Veronica Mars_  
_Private Dick and Professional Cockblock_

Bitch.

Mac turns away from him, "how did you know about..." She turns quickly back to him, "Dick sent you a what?!"

He shrugs, he doesn't know why she's surprised, street fighter Mac was bad ass.

Mac heaves a large sigh and starts out of the cafeteria, away from him without another word.

"Hey! I want my sweater back!" He yells after her. She just waves him off and he's fairly certain he's never getting it back.

* * *

A/N: so I meant to post last night, but i had changed a lot of the chapter and i hit backspace and the computadora freaked out and went back a page and i lost everything. I was so upset I went to bed. So i've saved this copy like eight times. So I hope you like these chapters as well. Looking forward to your reviews.


	11. Halloween: Dick

**Halloween: Dick**

* * *

Dick loves Halloween.

How could he not, girls going around in next to nothing, wearing skin tight suits and putting on cat ears and a tail and pretending not to be a slut.

It was the perfect day of the year to get some sweet little thing _who normally doesn't do this kind of thing_ to sleep with him.

Of course this year he had a very specific sweet little thing in mind.

Mac.

He had wanted her rather a lot before the whole sweater thing, but now...god it was unbearable. He'd watched the video of her laying the smack down god it had to have been close to a hundred times. Scrappy Mac, who took that hit like a champ who was all smart mean mouth and no mercy. He was starting to think she might even like it a bit rough.

Which he could totally work with.

God he wanted to work with that.

He had been right about his sweater, he hadn't worn it since.

He'd seen it sure.

On her.

In the middle of the night on his way to his room when she was going to the bathroom. In nothing but his sweater and a pair of those boy cut panties he likes...she likes! She likes oh fuck it he likes them too, tube socks pulled up high, hair a little messy. Staring at him as they were frozen in each others gaze.

She didn't even look guilty about it.

She had smirked and went into the bathroom and Christ he was tempted to wait for her to come back out.

But no. He was biding his time. He had all the time in the world. She was still without a significant other and he knew that word on Greek row was that she was his not so secret girlfriend so he was safe on that front. No more Cameron's horning in on his territory.

Which had a downside too. It meant he hasn't had any since the video went out. Theta Beta's especially were worried that Mac would knock them out cold if they were caught with him. So if he wanted to get any, tonight was the time, Mac would be in a costume of varying degree of slutiness and she'd be a little more malleable and they've finally have sex.

Finally.

It had building up to this for god knows how long, probably since those strange too long looks across the room while she was with Beaver. He'd never really understood what that was until they'd moved in together.

He had no idea what she was wearing, he'd been at the pi sig house all day helping with party preparations, he was hoping for something with a skirt, or a dress, something with easy access because he was sure if she agreed he wouldn't be able to make it all the way back to the house to have his way with her.

"So what's your girl wearing?" Pete asked leaning against the wall next to him, surveying the already thumping party. Pete was currently dressed as a pirate and had his eye patch flipped up. He would have been better suited to a Viking with his red hair. There had been a house wide debate over which costume he was more likely to get action in. They had decided pirate although Dick still maintained that Viking would have been better in fact he Viking'd up to prove them wrong.

Mostly he was for any costume where he didn't need to wear a shirt. He'd seen Mac space out looking at him and he was pulling out all the stops tonight.

"I don't know." He wasn't even going to pretend that she wasn't his, "She went out with Ronnie the other day to get something." he shrugs Ronnie was likely to force her into something a little sexier than Mac would normally go for which was fine with him, "She's supposed to be coming with Logan and Ronnie but I haven't seen them yet."

He's scanning the crowd when Logan finally appears. Logan raises his red solo cup in greeting and with a nod Dick pushes away from the wall and heads through the crowd towards his best friend.

Logan had one hand on the back of a brunette in what he recognised immediately as a slave Leia bikini. He and Beaver had watched Jedi so many times because of that outfit.

"Hey you better get your hands of the hottie before Ronnie sees." He tells him in a low whisper barely heard over the music, "Just because you match doesn't mean he's for you." He tells the girl referencing the Han Solo outfit that Logan is sporting, a hand on her shoulder as she turns her towards him.

It's Veronica and she fills out the costume really well and he's trying really hard not to notice.

"Stop starring Dick. I've got Mr. Sparky hidden somewhere in this outfit and you do _not_ want to make me get it."

He backs up with his hands up in surrender, "Have you seen Mac?" he asks looking directly above Logan's shoulder. He doesn't want to see the look that Logan's giving him and he sure as fuck doesn't want to see the look that Veronica is giving him.

"We lost her in the kitchen." Logan tells him and without waiting for anything else Dick heads off towards the kitchen pretending that he can't hear Ronnie chewing out Logan for giving up Mac's location so easily.

He pushes his way into the kitchen which is shockingly empty save for Danny and a ghostbuster. He considers backing away slowly since Danny is having a surprisingly animated conversation with this girl. Perhaps he's met his match, Danny fucking loves ghostbusters. He bites his lip but moves forward anyway. He'll just ask if he's seen Mac and leave the pair to kindle a possibly meaningful relationship because seriously there are girls walking around the house in underwear and fairy wings and he's in the kitchen with a girl who is modestly covered in a tan jumpsuit.

The girl brushes her hair over her shoulder in a way that he's seen Mac do a thousand times.

Fuck it's Mac.

He traces the modest lines of the jumpsuit down her body, and she moves in such a way that is inexplicably Mac. So much for a sexy sluty costume she'd need to drink to feel comfortable in. What good was Veronica really? Come on! This was the perfect opportunity to try and get Mac laid and she'd let her leave the store with a guys outfit?

Mac laughs at something Dan says, a head back proper laugh and Danny's face lights up. Danny is a pledge. Fucking pledge trying to move in on his girl. Sure she didn't really know she was his girl and there was no way that Danny knew that this was _Mac_ it would mean the end of him going against the rush chair like this.

It boiled his blood all the same and he closed the distance between them quickly.

"Mac, this is where you've been hiding." His voice is darker than he meant it to be, something heavy in his tone and she turns to him and opens her mouth to say something but he closes the gap and crushes against her mouth before she can get a word out.

His mouth moves against her and he knows it's too rough and possessive but she is his. He pushes at Danny and watches him run from the room. Mac's hands grab onto his arms and her mouth is moving against his too.

Hot and hurried and needy.

Her tongue runs across his lip and he's sure he's going to fall over because the feel of her causes the bottom of his stomach to drop out, he's not moving fast enough for her it seems because her teeth bite his lip before he gasps a little in pain allowing her access to his mouth and him hers.

Fuck.

She does like it rough.

Thank you god.

He suddenly understands every glazed look in his brothers eyes because she's a little too rough and strong and it makes him feel something, there's an urgency to her pressing fingers and tongue and mouth that makes him hold onto her tighter.

It's about fucking time.


	12. Halloween: MAC

Halloween: MAC

* * *

Holy frak!

She had just been talking to some freshman about ghostbusters and then Dick just shows up and smashes their mouths together.

She should really push him away.

She should...

She will...

She can't.

She won't.

His mouth is pressing too hard against her and she can feel him all the way to her bones, heart stopped, lungs burning and his tongue is sliding against hers and it feels like frakking magic, like sparks and burning body chemistry and she wants more of it.

Always.

Forever.

His hands grab onto her butt and in a show of strength she's on the counter top his mouth never breaking from hers. She wraps her legs around his waist pulling him closer to her when his mouth finally comes away from hers.

Puffs of breath against her mouth, his eyes dark and focused on her in a way that pools all the heat in her body into her gut. He's looking at her like he wants to devour her and god she wants him to.

She runs her hands across the expanse of his bare chest, "nice costume." She's not sure how but she manages a smirk, "Viking?" She asks her fingers curling into the faux fur at his waist.

He nods and pulls away from her ever so slightly to look down the front of her. To see the barely open jumpsuit, the only thing in the entire store that didn't make her feel like an absolute slut. His hands are on the zipper and he pulls it down revealing her white tank top, his hot burning fingers running down her body more until he reveals royal blue silk and black lace.

She watches him swallow roughly his eyes glued to her underwear.

He doesn't say a thing just lets out a shaking breath and latches his mouth to her neck, moveing his hands into the jumpsuit. The feel of his hands on her skin is boiling her blood. She wants him. Needs him to be closer, wants to feel all of him.

She pulls him in closer with her legs and he pushes up against her and a moan vibrates across her skin and the feeling is amazing.

He's got a hand climbing her body under the tank top fingers reaching for the cup of her bra and the other running long lines across the lace fringe. He's all hot breath and firm fingers and she's surprised somehow at just how different one brother can be from another. Flashes of Cassidy's shaking breath on her skin, his cool fingers skating across her skin echo across her body.

Wherever Dick touches her the memory of Cass follows.

Brother.

Beaver.

Cassidy.

Her entire body runs cold.

She pushes him roughly away from her. He must be so surprised at her sudden denial because he stumbles backward into the island. His eyes dark and wide and wounded.

Wrong.

This is wrong.

It feels like a betrayal.

A sudden and frigid thing, ice running through her veins at the very thought.

She slips from the counter and zips up her jumpsuit the zipper biting painfull into her skin and she feels a little better for the pain because she deserves it.

"Mac..."

He sounds broken, scared and too much like his brother all she can do is shake her head no.

"Mac please, just talk to me." Dick reaches out to touch her but she jumps back because her skin suddenly feels like it's wrapped in wet plastic.

"I can't...this...no." She finishes in what she really wants to be a firm voice but in what she's sure must sound weak and broken and afraid.

She needs out of this place.

It's too full of people and she feels wrong and broken and everything about grad night seems to be sitting right on the edges of her rather than buried deep inside where she's been pushing it.

She curses coming with Logan and Veronica for not having an easy escape plan.

"Mac!" She turns and can see Dick on the far side of the crowd trying to get at her and she just absolutely can not deal with that. She dodges sideways through the crowd and ends up in a closet.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and sends Veronica a message.

_Second floor linen closet. I need you_

She waits all of three minutes before a series of knocks indicate Veronica and the door opens and her best friend slides into the closet.

"Are you okay?" She whispers using her cell phone as a flashlight to run over her body for damages. She's sure all the damage is internal.

She wraps her arms around Veronica and they sink to the floor of the small space. Veronica holds on to her, rubbing softly at her back.

"What happened?" She tries again.

"Dick..."

"What did he do!" Veronica asks roughly pushing away to look at her more carefully. Veronica's fingers go to her neck which is still wet and probably bruised, "I'll kill him. I will put him on the bottom of the god damn ocean." She tells her heatedly.

She shakes her head, "no it's not that...it's...I wanted to...but..." Mac looks down focusing on her knees, "Cassidy." it's a broken whispered word that means too much.

She's not sure if Veronica understands what she's saying at all but Veronica's arms go around her and hold her tightly to her fingers digging into skin she whispers, "Lets go home."

All she can do is nod and let Veronica take her by the hand and lead her through the party to get Logan's keys.

She thinks that Veronica tells Logan to find out what's going on from Dick but she's too busy trying to just disappear into the crowd, to melt, to just not exist that it's mostly background noise until Veronica is setting her down on her bed.

"Get changed I'm going to get in my pyjama's and get some extra blankets. We're going to have a sleep over. Girl talk and junk food and absolutely no boys."

The blonde disappears from the room and Mac stands in front of her closet looking at a pair of sweaters hanging there. Heather gray and large, Dark green against light green, light and thin. She raises the green sleeve to her face, still as soft as ever and it still smells of him, she's been insanely careful about washing the smell away, ocean spray and something earthy she didn't know something that was and will forever be Cassidy. When the sleeve comes away from her face its damp. Biting her lip she pulls both out of the closet and starts down the hall toward Dick's bedroom.

"What are you doing?" Veronica asks following her into the room where she watches as Mac lays out both sweaters on the bed pressing against the fabric of the green sweater, pushing away wrinkles like it was something precious. And it was. It was just too big for her to have any more, too heavy to always be carrying in her closet, in the back of her mind.

"I'm done with Casablancas'." She tells her firmly, "It just hurts too much." Veronica pulls her into a hug and walks her down the hallway.

* * *

A/N: Okay so a bit of a downer ending. But don't worry my dear readers, they live together, things are bound to get hilariously awkward. After all you can't carry around that kind of baggage and not expect some drama to show up. I'm a big fan of Veronica and Mac's friendship hope you liked it. Looking forward to a hell week at work so please feel free to tell me how much you love me. I'm planing to put up a short Veronica/Logan set of chapters up after this as they try and deal with the mess that is there best friends.


	13. Guilt and Loyalty part 1

**Guilt **and Loyalty

* * *

"Okay so you were right." She concedes and averts her eyes as his smile grows.

He's been telling her for months now that Mac and Dick have some sort of Ned and Stacy thing going on. She's been pretty adamant in denying such a possibility.

However it's pretty hard to deny after Halloween. What with the ruffled costume, the mark on her neck and the renewed Casablancas trauma.

Mac has however been doing an amazing job at avoiding Dick. she's been staying at Parker's for the past week.

Early on November first she had been shaken awake by Mac who was standing with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She showed Veronica a note on her phone.

_I'm staying at Parker's for a while to sort stuff out._

She had nodded and opened her mouth but Mac had shook her head and opened her bedroom door to reveal Dick, asleep on the floor in front of her door.

"So are you going to tell me where she's hiding so we can sort this out now?" Logan asks sitting heavily on the bed as Veronica paces slowly across the room.

She hasn't told Logan where Mac is hiding out because Dick is a wreck and she knows that Logan pretends to be hard but is an absolute marshmellow when it comes to Dick.

She shakes her head violently. If Mac is anything like her, which is becoming glaringly more obvious in Mac's desire and surprising skill at running away from this problem, she isn't going to want to see Dick until she's good and ready.

"No, I'll talk to Mac, you find out what's going on with Dick." She whispers the last part and peeks out the bedroom door.

The door to Mac's bedroom is open and she can see Dick asleep on her bed. Where he's slept all week as far as she can tell.

God she's not getting soft is she?

Because she should throw him out of there, tell him to stop being a perv but he just looks so harmless with his arms full of Mac's quilt. Like a sad lonely puppy or something.

"So are you coming home tonight?" He asks and there's a strain in his voice, something dark and worried and insecure.

She puts a hand on his chin and lifts his face, "Hey. This isn't about us. We." She points at the pair of them, "we are good. Right?"

She's been spending every other night or so at Parker's trying to get Mac to see some sort of reason.

It obviously hasn't been going very well.

"I just miss you." He pulls her down onto the bed, rolling onto her and she can't help it a giggle escapes her mouth and it pulls a spectacular smile across Logan's face, "hurry home to me Bobcat." He plants firm kisses across her face and she almost forgets that she'd been about to leave for campus.

* * *

She's two hours late arriving at Parker's dorm and she feels kind of dirty standing there looking at Parker and realising that she's done up her shirt wrong in her haste.

"How's our girl?" She asks looking everywhere but at Parker as the leggy blonde takes in her appearance. She drove all the way here with the windows down but she's still pretty sure that she smells of Logan and sex.

She likes Parker and Parker likes her...it's just not as easy as it was before the Piznarski beat down of '06 and even less so after the great LoRonica reunion of '07.

LoRonica? Ugh she'd have to think of something better later.

Parker points to the far side of the room where Mac is folded up on herself doing something on her laptop.

Possibly homework probably _Portal_.

They sit down on opposite sides of Mac, sandwiching her in. She was right it's portal.

Veronica points at the screen, "put the orange one there." She says and receives a light swat on the back. She looks up at Parker who is looking at her with wide expressive eyes.

They obviously say that she's not helping.

Her stomach twists in on itself because she wants to help, she does. She may not understand why she would like Dick but she totally understands guilt, Logan over Leo, Logan over Duncan, Duncan over Logan and of course Meg. The guilt over Meg still shadows her and she pulls at it because it's the closest she can get to the guilt Mac must feel over Dick vs Cassidy.

"How are you feeling today?" She asks preparing herself for the worst.

Mac doesn't even turn to her, "what's lower than scum? Cause that."

"I don't know I'm not a biology major..." She looks up at Parker.

"Hey I'm an English major I have no idea." She raises her hands in surrender before pulling the laptop away from Mac.

"Hey I was doing stuff."

"Yeah, the same stuff you've been doing for days. I thought you we're supposed to be sorting stuff out?" She asks standing and putting the laptop on the far side of the room so if nothing else Mac at least has to move.

"I am." Mac looks down at her sleeves, picking at the fringe. It's horribly obvious how much she wishes the sweater was a different one.

Which sweater is the question thou, green or grey.

"Bullshit." Parker let's out and both she and Mac look at her quickly, she's positive she hasn't heard Parker swear before, "I've had it Mac, I love you I do but you've got to deal with this Dick thing."

"If you want me to leave I can find somewhere else to stay." Mac responds glossing right over the important bits. Standing as if she'd leave in that very moment.

"Don't be stupid." Parker sighs heavily, "Veronica help me out here?"

"You know it's okay if you like Dick right?" She asks quietly, "no one thinks your a gold digger or morbid or anything." Veronica sighs, she didn't want to say this part, "I think you guys actually kind of fit somehow. Better than you and Cassidy ever did." She closes her eyes and waits for the backlash.

There's just a sniffle and Veronica's eyes snap open quickly to see Mac has her hands pressed tight to her eyes as if she can keep a lid on her tears.

"I care about him, but I can't...I can't do it to Cassidy. I just...I can't." Parker moves quicker and has her arms wrapped around her tightly, rocking her slightly.

"What did Cassidy ever do to deserve this kind of loyalty Mac?" The sobbing sound slows to a stop and Veronica pushes herself off the floor and wraps her arms around the pair of them.

"I'm so sorry Mac. I'm a total shit friend, Logan had been telling me for months that something was going on but I thought he was just being over dramatic. You know how he is."

She can feel Parker nod in agreement.

"I hate that you thought you couldn't talk to me about this. You can always come to me."

"But it's so bad." Mac's voice comes thinly out of a mess of sweater and blonde hair. She and Parker doing their best to hide and protect her from the world.

"There are worse things Mac-Attack." Parker supplies.

She can't help it, "like genocide and that old people cabbage smell."

It pulls a snicker out of Mac and she considers it a triumph.

The door flies open and all three girls look up in shock praying for it to not be Dick or even Logan.

"Hey. You okay?" It's Wallace and he closes the door quickly behind him.

"How did you know she was here?" Parker asks pulling away from the hug.

"Where else would she be? She isn't at her parents, she isn't at Keith's, she isn't at mine so obviously she's here. How has no one else found you yet?" He asks closing the small distance between them and wrapping his arms around Mac.

She watches as Mac melts into his hug.

A good Wallace hug fixes pretty much everything.

"When Logan came to check I was in the closet with all my stuff." She tells him and his body shakes with laughter.

"You taking lessons from V?"

"Hey I was only stuck in a closet like twice." She defends. That is just not fair, what next they going to make fun of her for getting locked in that trunk that one time?

Friends like these.

"You want to catch a movie?" Parker asks the room, keys already in her hand, "the film club is showing The Shinning."

"No love story? I'm in." Mac agrees pulling away from Wallace.

Wallace opens the door wide for them sweeping his arm like a gentlemen and an odd sense of normality falls over them that warms Veronica.

She waits at the door for Parker watching Wallace grab onto Mac's arm and force it into a flex. He's squeezing it and she's laughing and he's asking her when her next fight is. He wants ring side tickets.

"Do you think she's okay?" She asks Parker as they lag behind the pair.

"Not yet but she'll get there." Parker replies softly watching as Mac jumps onto Wallaces back so he can carry her, "how does he do that?"

"Wallace?"

Parker nods.

Honestly she's not sure how Wallace does it, make everything okay, even when everything was as far from okay as it could get. He was magic.

"He's magic." She tells Parker who nods in agreement because who can deny the magic that is Papa Bear.

* * *

**A/N:** Part one of the Veronica/Logan bit. A review asked Where's Wallace and I thought...yeah where is Wallace? I hope he doesn't feel to out of place in the girl bond fest, but he'd been a part of pretty much every bond-fest with Veronica since season one so I think it fits. obviously cause if i didn't i'd write something different. Okay so I'm totally late for work now so I'll post this and the Logan part later today.


	14. Guilt and Loyalty part 2

Guiltand** Loyalty**

* * *

Logan stands in Mac's doorway for a few long moments just looking at the pathetic adorable mess his best friend has become...or is maybe? Because Dick hasn't been all right in years.

Not since _grad night_.

When he'd found him too late, throwing up on the sidewalk as they loaded what was left of Cassidy into a big black bag. He had promised himself that he'd never do that again but when he'd gone to see him the next day he was already gone. He hadn't been there for him then, when he had needed him most so he'd be there now.

He'd seen Dick asleep in the hall in front of her door Halloween night. Faux Viking fur balled up for a pillow as if he could make sure she'd stay.

People kept abandoning the blond and Logan could see right through him. Maybe because he understood that feeling all too well. Suicide had taken the ones they had loved most and it was a stain on them that could never scrub away. The parallels between them always surprised him.

Maybe that's why he was such a god damn marshmallow when it came to Dick.

They were just two of a kind.

Tragedy magnets.

He sits down heavily on the bed next to him and pinches his side. He may be a marshmallow but he was still Logan Echolls.

"The fuck dude." Dick yells twisting away from his fingers.

"You can't stay here all day man."

"I think I've proven that theory wrong." Dick grumbles and turns away from him.

This behaviour actually reminds him a lot of when Beaver broke up with Mac, he wonders briefly if she's some sort of Casablancas drug because he hasn't seen Dick go through such a shit time of it since Beaver bet him a thousand bucks and an A English paper that he couldn't quit drinking cold turkey. Then again he'd been shut out of Dick's grieving process although he had been sure it had involved rather a lot more alcohol.

It hurts something in him to see Dick like this.

It's time for some tough love.

"You think Mac's going to come back just because you're crying into her bed."

"I haven't cried." Dick mumbles but keeps his back to him. His voice is this horrible heavy thing that weighs down the air in the room.

"You think you deserve Mac like this?" He's trying to push him into any kind of action, at this point swinging at him will at least get him off the bed.

"Of course I don't deserve her." His voice is thick and oddly heated, "she already dated the smart brother why bother with the stupid one."

"You're not stupid Dick." He honestly believed it and not many people did. After all he was in business classes with Dick and he had an unnatural knack to the thing, a charm he'd inherited from his father. He was passing all their classes without a hint of effort whereas he kept struggling through it.

It was that same natural charm that made so many girls fall for Dick at least temporarily.

He'd seen him try and charm Mac but she'd just roll her eyes make a comment about how his_ slut powers_ won't work on her and go about her business.

No Mac seemed to like Dick for the mess of a human being he really was. In spite of rather than because of his charm.

"It's okay that you like her man."

"No it's not." Dick bites back and there's such a firm quality to his voice like he's sure of one fact in life and its that it is not okay to like Mac the way he does.

"He's dead man, she's not his girlfriend any more." Logan's voice comes out sober and heavy. He doesn't like talking about Cassidy its a topic coated in guilt.

Cassidy had been a great and close friend. Almost family and he had been so frozen with shock over what the boy had done, a boy he'd known since he was twelve, a boy he had surfed with and fucked off to mexico with, words had just refused to form in his mouth.

If he had been better Dick might still have a brother.

If he had been better Dick and Mac might have been a little less broken.

"She'll always be his girlfriend. They didn't break up. He died. It's different and I was stupid to think otherwise."

He had no idea what to say. It wasn't really his opinion that mattered here. It was Mac's and her disappearing act sure seemed to support Dick's argument.

His phone went off and he shifted to grab it from his pocket.

_Wallace: found her, Parker's. Going to the film clubs showing of the Shining. You didn't hear it from me._

"God bless Wallace Fennel." He whispered and when he looked up Dick was eyeing him oddly.

"What?"

"I know where Mac is."

Dick sits up on the bed, the movements so fast lightening would be jealous.

"Where is she." Dick pushes him off the bed like he means to leave right now.

"Why does it matter? Since you don't want to be with her."

Dick slows as if he's contemplating the idea. He sits on the edge of the bed for a moment his hand to his mouth his eyes dark before he nods and gets up.

"Let's go." He tells him, "just because I'll feel guilty about it later has never stopped me from doing stuff before."

That's only partially true. Dick doesn't feel guilty about many things in the first place. So he's pretty sure he's not thinking through this properly. However he's been trying to casually push them together for months so he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He thinks that Mac is the right medicine for Dick's particular sickness.

Plus he's off the bed and has successfully made it all the way out of Mac's bedroom, all the way down the hall.

He'll consider it a win.

* * *

He seriously has a talent.

He's been on campus all of five maybe ten minutes and he's at the centre of a brawl.

He'd been pretty lucky to not really see Gory alone since the cafeteria fight.

He'd seen him sure but with Veronica who seemed to have some sort of power over him, or when he was hanging out with Dick and numerous other Pi Sig's.

Today however, just walking across the quad with just Dick he was apparently a perfectly acceptable risk.

Dick had no clue as to why exactly they were fighting, he was sure that Dick had thrown himself into this fight for Logan and maybe because he hadn't been in a fight in a good long while. It was a strange thing, just throwing yourself into someone else's fight without so much as a word from the other party.

Gory had thrown his fist into Logan's face and Dick hadn't wasted a moment to throw his own into that Russian asshole's teeth.

He'd done it for Dick before and this wasn't the first time Dick had done it for him and as idiotic as that was there was something important about it. heavy and important in the core of him. Dick was family and this willingness to go to the mat for any reason for him let him know that no matter what had happened between them, they loved each other, they were brothers, family.

A better family than either of them had been gifted with by nature.

Dick's voice burst out across the chaos of the quad, a shout of profanity and pain that tightened Logan's stomach and sent his body cold with worry.

When he caught a glimpse of Dick he had his left arm close to his chest, motionless, and was punching one of Gory's lackeys with his right.

What he wouldn't give for Mac's surprising UFC skills right now.

The campus police broke the fight up shortly after and they allowed him to take Dick straight to the hospital in spite of his claims that he was fine.

Logan led Dick back to the car trying not to look too hard at the fact that Dick's left arm seemed dead and his skin ungodly pale.

"What was that about man?" Dick asks pushing Logan away and getting into the car himself.

"That was the guy who taped Veronica." He grumbles and watches as Dick averts his eyes.

"I thought you taught the asshole a lesson already?"

"Yeah well apparently he wanted to return the favour." Logan starts up the car as he pulls his phone from his pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm calling Veronica to let her know I'm taking you to the hospital."

"Dude don't, I'm fine." Logan watches with a little more humour than maybe he should as Dick attempts to reach out and grab the phone with his left hand only to yelp in pain and bring it back to his body, "she's just going to laugh and say I deserved it." Dick tells him, his head resting on the dash.

"Yeah probably, but then she'll ask if your okay. And then she'll tell Mac."

Dick sighs heavily beside him as he starts the phone call pulling out of the parking spot.

Logan's not sure why his bestie is in such a bad place. If he's learned anything from his time with Veronica it's that a good injury is bound to bring you back together.

He can see it now, Mac will rush into the hospital room distraught worried about Dick, throw her bag to the ground and throw herself into Dick's arms.

They will topple over and laugh a little and kiss a lot and everything will be good.

He's sure of it and what he's been wrong like twice?

* * *

**A/N:** Oh Logan you sweet romantic fool. Next chapter goes back to Mac and Dick Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'm a big fan of some Logan/Dick friendship is family feels.


	15. Broken bones: MAC

**Broken bones MAC**

* * *

_tonto! Jump on it_

The entire room turns to look at Veronica.

Mac recognises that as Veronica's ringtone for Logan. She whispers her apologies and answers the phone, making her way towards the back of the room.

She watches Veronica hold onto the back wall and whisper into the phone, she looks upset and the entire room can hear her side of the conversation.

_with who?_

She visibly pales and something tightens in her stomach.

_how bad is he..._

He? Who the hell could _he_ be.

Christ it's Dick, if she's talking to Logan and saying he it must be Dick.

_the hospital?!_

Mac stands up knocking over her chair. Dick's in the hospital. She pushes her way through the chairs, most occupied with very unhappy looking people so she can get to the back of the room and Veronica.

She's grabbing onto Veronica's arm and pulling her out of the room to the applause of the audience and the worried confusion of Wallace and Parker.

"Mac, it'll be okay they're on their way to the hospital now. It'll be okay." Veronica tells her but she doesn't slow her pace as they rush through campus to the nearest car.

It's hers.

She's been hiding it in the meta-physics departments lot, a place she was positive Dick didn't know existed, she'd paid some super nerd in playboys.

She let's go of Veronica to jump into the car.

She started to pull away before Veronica had closed her door.

She slammed the thing and Mac sped out of the parking lot stopping at one stop sign out of five.

"Mac. Calm down, I'm sure he's fine. He's fine." Veronica repeated to herself and Mac knew there was something else happening here.

"What happened Veronica?" She asks doing her best to remember to breath AND how to use the brake peddle.

"They got in a fight..." There was a worried tone to the words and it scared her.

"With who..."

"Sorokin."

"What!" Mac slammed on the brakes, apparently she did remember how to use them, "oh my god he's been shot."

"We don't know that..." Veronica's eyes were wide with worry, "he's fine, I'm sure he's fine."

"He's been shot." She gripped the wheel tight and sped off towards the hospital.

He's been shot.

There's no way that they got away with another regular brawl with a made man. She couldn't do it again, she can't lose another Casablancas, it hurt so bad last time, she still wasn't over it, she couldn't do it again.

She skids into a parking space, the passenger side wheels slamming into the curb and rocking the tiny car. She's out of the car and bursting into the emergency room before Veronica even manages to get her seatbelt off.

She's looking desperately around the room for Logan or a nurse or someone god anyone who doesn't have dead eyes and look like a result of poorly executed DIY.

"Mac!" She turns quickly to see Logan and Dick.

He's obviously not shot.

She takes several deep breaths before she walks over to them. There is an open seat next to Dick but she doesn't take it. She stands in front of the moron looking down at him with her mouth clamped closed with her teeth.

He looks up at her and has the audacity to look sheepish! She's positive it's the first time in his entire life he's tried that face on and it looks all wrong on him.

His eyes are focused on her, sweeping across her like he's trying to put her to memory.

"Hey." He goes to move his left arm, a flash of pain crosses his face and he brings the offending arm back to his chest.

"Hey?" She can't keep the razor edge out of the word, "hey. You get into a fight with the Russian Mafia and all you can say is hey?" She turns sharply to Logan, "and don't think I don't know you where purposely vague Mr. Echolls."

"Mac I'm fine." Dick grabs onto her with his good hand, pulling her arm back away from its accusatory position.

"No you're not you're in pain and I'm so mad at you."

"Mac I'm sorry okay."

He says it and it sounds like he means it and the grip he has on her sleeve is desperate like he expects her to vanish again. But he has no idea what he's apologising for, how could he when she has no idea why she's pissed.

She prys his fingers off of her, she opens her mouth to say something to him but he just looks broken and the anger melts away a little bit.

"Come home." Its a whisper of a thing and she can see out of the corner of her eye that Logan has suddenly found a Tigerbeat magazine very interesting.

That's just not fair. Why is she so weak for the Casablancas bloodline? She had dick all in common with Dick, her attraction only made sense on a physical level but whatever was going on between them was worse than that, it ran deeper, right into the core of them where they were messy and broken and it scared her.

She pushes her hair out of her face and turns to Logan instead. She rips the teen magazine out of his hand and throws it onto the empty seat by Dick.

"Take the idiot to St. Agatha's." She shakes her head wondering why Logan had gone to the general, habit perhaps? Its where the police probably take him, "tell Dr. Franklin he'll be square if he takes care of Dick."

It's a waste of a favour. She's sure of it. She should just let them sit around and wait for like ten hours in the emergency room. But when is she ever really going to need to call in that favour, a left over from all the work she'd done for Veronica.

She turns away from them and starts back towards the doors.

"Mac!" Dick calls after her and she doesn't need to turn to know that he's standing can see it in the fact that everyone in the waiting room is watching. She stops and waits but doesn't turn around, "where are you going?" He asks and she focuses her eyes on the door just as Veronica comes through them.

She watches Veronica look between herself and Dick can see an uncharacteristic softness to her hard-boiled friend.

"I'm going to get my stuff from Parker's."

She's more than a little aware of the unnatural dead silence of the waiting room.

"You're coming home?" He asks and she bites her lips and starts toward Veronica. She's not going to say yes.

It's obvious to everyone in the room anyway.

"Come on Veronica." She tells the blonde softly and they make there way back to her totally unlocked car.


	16. Broken bones: Dick

**Broken bones: Dick**

* * *

Logan is obviously disappointed in the reunion.

He's known Logan since he was twelve and having movie star parents has messed him up in a lot of ways, like being romanticly over dramatic.  
It's all big huge gestures for him, which he guesses works pretty well for the most part since Ronnie's also a little like that.

But Logan doesn't get Mac. He barely gets Mac but he knows a few things from living with her and her time with Cass, and one of those things is that she likes the small things. The little things that by themselves don't mean all that much but add up to great things.

She threw away a hard earned favour to get him quicker and easier treatment. She had ran into that er room like a woman possessed, like him being hurt really mattered.

Maybe it hadn't meant what he thought thou, because her room was empty.

Perhaps all that was just because he was maybe sort of a friend now, that he was a contributing factor to her having a place to stay, that he was Logan's best friend and she was Logan's friend.

It was looking more and more like maybe her fear and anger hadn't at all meant that she cared about him. Her laptop wasn't in the room and if the laptop wasn't here she wasn't here.

"Liar." He grumbled and left her room. He would lay down half doped on his bed and just wait for Logan to drag him to dinner.

He opens his door and almost has a heart attack.

There laying on his bed all the pillows behind piled up behind her is Mac, she's typing furiously and fuck if that's not the best thing ever.

Like she fucking belongs there and he maybe finally gets the point of living with your girlfriend, because he doesn't want her to be anywhere else but with him. Which is strange and powerful and sickening all at once.

She's so focused she hasn't even noticed that he's in the room. He closes the door softly because doped or not this is finally _it_.

She's realised she can't live without him and they are finally going to have sex. Why else would she be waiting for him on his bed.

He moves to the bed and can't believe how focused she is. What the hell is she doing because he climbs onto the bed and still nothing. The bed is dipping under the weight of him and everything. God he could have so much fun with this crazy focus later.

His fingers wrap over the screen and pull the laptop out of her lap and she finally looks up, eyes wide.

"I was using that Dick." She tells him and he glances at the screen to see lines of that code shit. He sets it onto the nightstand and smiles at her.

"I'm glad you took me up on my offer." He tells her placing a knee between hers.

"What offer?" She asks quietly.

"To sleep in my bed."

He places his hands on either side of her so she's properly underneath him.

She turns to look at his cast, "should you be putting wait on that?" She asks and her voice is a beautiful mix of flustered concern.

He shrugs and pushes her legs apart with his knee and she turns to him quickly. Her face flushed.

"What are you-" he doesn't let her finish he leans down to capture her mouth and is pleased with the fact that she leans up into him.

Her hands move to his back and _fucking finally_. He presses his knee up against her and revels in the soft little noises she makes against his mouth and arch of her into him.

Her teeth sink into his lip and he's a little disappointed that the painkillers he's on remove the bite from her but he opens up to her anyway. It can bite and burn later after he's finally properly taken her, after he writes his name all over her skin, after she's truly and properly his and she knows it.

She parts from his mouth and he moves his mouth to the skin of her neck pulling soft little moans out of her that drive straight into him, and it's official she's the best ever, all those noises and the way her body rolls into his like she needs his body heat to live. Everything about her is real and proper, it's not over exaggerated or faked its pure.

He pulls away from her and she makes a beautiful frustrated noise in the back of her throat that he knows he'll strive to repeat.

"I like you." He tells her.

"Yeah I figured that out." She smirks and her hands push into his back trying to move him back down but he needs to get this out first.

"No, I mean really, like more than sex. Like properly really like you."

She stills beneath him. He looks at her collar bone and takes a deep shaking breath.

"I want you to be my girlfriend."

"No." She tells him firmly but her hands move to pull him back to her and it makes no sense, because Mac is a good girl (comparatively) and she's not supposed to have random sex.

"What do you mean _no_?"

"I can't be your girlfriend Dick. It's not right."

"But you'll fuck me anyway?" Its not really a question its a statement, because she knew where things were going and by the confidence in her words this isn't something she just thought up. This is her trying to get around whatever guilt had driven her away. Like being fuck buddies is fine because its not emotional.

"You don't want to?" She asks confused and honestly he's confused as well because yeah he totally wants to but he wants to fuck her because he cares about her and wants to properly be with someone for the first time in his life, she just wants to fuck away the sexual tension.

He removes himself from her, "get out." He tells her and he watches her nervously get off the bed and he sighs because she looks so small and frail and he wants to protect her.

When she's at the door, her arms wrapped around her laptop he tells her, "come back when it will actually mean something." He rolls over and can't believe what he's done.

When the fuck had this feelings shit happened? He certainly didn't like it, but he knew for once that he was in the right this time. That morality and good was finally on the side of Casablancas.

* * *

**A/N:** Oh noes! So close! Don't forget to review and tell me how you felt about these chapters. I'm pretty proud of our boy Dick having big boy feelings and everything.


	17. Words that need to be said: Dick

**Words that need to be said: Dick**

* * *

He'd drawn the short straw or she did. Depended on who you asked really. He'd rather go grocery shopping with anyone else. But no he and Veronica had ended up with this particular chore.

He was flopped over the cart, head in his hands watching the small blonde walk in front of him and drop things into the cart as he inched along behind.

He'd rather go shopping with Logan but after the trip they'd made last month that ended up with a fully stocked liquor cabinet and no milk he was pretty sure the system had been rigged against their union.

He honestly wasn't sure if he'd rather be with Mac on this trip or not. It had been a week since she'd turned down being his girlfriend in favour of a more...amoral relationship.

A relationship he was apparently totally above now unforunately.

Mac however was doing everything in her power to make him regret that decision he was sure of it.

Leaving underwear on her bed when she knew he still went in there for afternoon naps.

Walking around at night in his sweater and those little underpants he liked.

She had wiped his computer of porn as well, put a fucking parental block on the fucking thing so he couldn't...so he had nothing but banked memories and images to go off of. Which were of course all her.

_Bitch._

He wasn't going to give in. No. Not this time. Not when he was finally the good guy. Not when he finally understood the change in his brother when she had been around. Not when he finally fucking got it.

He watched Ronnie place some noodles into the cart.

"It's not vegan." He tells her, leaning over and grabbing the thing out of the cart to hand back to her.

Veronica stands in front of him a hand on her hip and the shopping list fisted in the other.

"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't have the vegan sticker on it." He sighs, "you have to get the stuff from aisle 18."

"It's noodles."

He flips the package over in his hand and points at the disclaimer, "made in a factory that handles eggs, tree nuts and meat." He leaves the cart to put the noodles back on the shelf and when he returns to the cart Veronica is looking at him weird, "what?"

"You_ actually_ care about her don't you." Veronica's voice is soft.

"Okay, I get it, I was an asshole and a whore can everybody stop sounding so god damned surprised about me actually caring about Mac? Seriously it's not like I haven't had a girlfriend before." He takes the list from her and starts his way down the aisle making Veronica push the cart.

"I don't really think Madison should count." Veronica mumbles and Dick stops stock still and she bumps the cart into the back of him.

"Why shouldn't Madison count?" He asks turning on her, "I was with her for five years."

"Yeah 'with'..." Veronica quotes her fingers making little bunnies by her head, "you were never_ just_ with Madison."

"That's not true." He tells her quietly. He had been exclusive with Madison until his fifteenth birthday party when he'd found her in a closet giving someone else a happy ending.

Sure a whole year wasn't much to go off of but it hadn't been him that had started things between him and Madie. She had been the one to break them first, he had just been trying to get a rise out of her.

It hadn't worked.

"She cheated first." He told her and Veronica nodded because a few people understood just the kind of bitch Madison was and he seemed to live with all of them.

"Yeah I believe that." She agrees, "bitch."

"It was my fucking birthday." He grumbles turning away from her and continuing the mission.

They stock up in aisle eighteen and finish the list off. He pays and the checkout girl hands Veronica the receipt and calls her Mrs. Casablancas.

She trips and he can't help laughing all the way to the suv.

They sit in her suv in surprisingly comfortable silence for a couple moments.

He looks over at her confused that she hasn't started the car yet but she keeps taking shaking breaths like she trying to say something really hard.

Another shaking breath and her hands tight around the wheel she finally manages to make sound.

"I'm proud of you." She tells him and his mouth drops a little bit.

"I'm sorry what?"

She turns to look at him, "with Mac, I'm proud of you. For not just...you know..."

"Being fuck buddies." He clarifies and she cringes.

"Yeah. I believe that you care about her I do, it's just weird to see in the little things... I mean I've known you forever and its new."

"Yeah this feeling shit...not really a fan." If he didn't have feelings for he he could be buried in her right fucking now. But for the first time he actually wanted it to mean something to both of them.

She laughs and starts the car.

It was nice to have Veronica in his corner on this. To have her on his side again was a familiar feeling, comfortable and reminded him of pee wee soccer almost a decade ago.

"Thanks." He tells her softly, "I'm sorry." He adds as they pull up to a stop light.

She looks at him, really looks at him and her eyes make him feel stripped and he hopes to god she gets what this is because he knows he can't list individual wrongs without totally falling apart.

She bites her lips for a moment, "I know." She returns, looking back in time for the light to change.

Its not forgiveness but he knows it more than he deserves. What he's done to her isn't the kind of thing he ever expects to be forgiven for.

She sighs heavily, "Beaver wasn't your fault." She tells him without looking, "and Mac isn't your fault either."

He doesn't really believe her but its nice to hear anyway.

"She has to sort this out on her own, but she cares about you...a lot. Which I think is the scary part because she doesn't think she has the right."

"Thanks Veronica...if you want to stop at that equipment store you like I'll buy you something pretty." He offers and she makes an illegal u-turn because she isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.


	18. Words that need to be said: MAC

**Words that need to be said: MAC**

* * *

"So it's me and you Mac-attack. What do you want to do?" Logan slings an arm over her shoulder and pulls her into a headlock.

She was sure that in Logan's eyes she was more dude than lady. Which whatever, she had never wanted that kind of attention from Logan so it suited her just fine.

"A little Global thermonuclear war?"

She pinches the soft skin of his underarm and wiggles away from him laughing, "I was thinking Buffy?"

He makes a_ thinking about it_ noise.

"Oh come on pretty ladies kickin ass and takin names?" Mac turns the tv to the appropriate setting and pulls up Buffy so the theme music plays behind her, "don't even pretend that you didn't try and get V to be Buffy for Halloween."

"She told you that huh?"

Veronica had spilled rather a lot of things in the wake of her halloween break down. Logan trying to get her best friend to wear a ripped up cheerleading uniform and carry around a cross and stake just happened to be one of them.

Logan is looking at her with knowing eyes and she knows he can pinpoint the exact reason why she is suddenly Veronica's gossip mate instead of Wallace. Not that she thinks Wallace doesn't also know all the things she does. Logan had a way of reading her that was uncanny, like he'd known her forever or something.

"Fine but Wargames later." He tells her pointing and she rolls her eyes but nods.

Sitting on the couch with Logan wasting the day watching vampires turn to clouds of ash is a surprisingly comfortable and natural thing and she can't really believe it.

They hadn't really known each other until senior year and even that had been a mix of Veronica or Cassidy buffered events. When had they become friends that could just sit in the dimly light living room for hours watching Buffy cut a path through the hellmouth, making random rude comments about the characters.

When had they even become friends?

Why did this feel so much like hanging out with a best friend?

She's oddly sure of where exactly this thing came from when Buffy finds Joyce dead.

He'd thought she was dead, and he'd found her wrecked instead. Did he make a hobby of slowly fixing broken girls? Veronica, Parker, herself...

She turns to look directly at him to tell him he doesn't need to fix her, that she's fine, that she's okay.

"I'm not okay." Spills out of her mouth instead.

"What?" Logan turns to her quickly his eyes scanning her body for obvious injuries but its always been internal.

"Why can't I... I thought just having casual sex with him would be okay? Why isn't that okay? Since when does Dick want strings?"

"Mac..." Logan whispers eyes wide and she can tell she must be close to crying by the way he shifts in anticipation of holding her.

"I can't... I can't let him be right."

"Who..."

"Cassidy." The name is as hard as ever to actually say out loud, it likes to get stuck in her throat. "I can't let him be right that Dick is better."

"But he is..." Logan is obviously prejudiced in this arena.

"I know that!" She breaks and a full blown sob escapes her, her whole body shakes and in an instant Logan's arms are wrapped around her.

"Dick is better...but I loved Cassidy first." She sobs into his shirt and her fingers claw at his shirt trying to push his chest into her eyes like it'll stop the tears.

"Mac...he's dead. He's done. He lov**ed** you and you lov**ed** him but it's in the past, it's done."

She knows he's right but he's never _felt_ dead. Bronson and Max had been fine because they had pieces of Cassidy in them that she could hold onto, things she thought he would approve of.

But there's nothing about Dick she thinks Cassidy would approve of.

"He doesn't feel dead." She whispers and Logan pulls her softly away from him.

He rubs softly at her face with the edge of the throw, wiping away her tears and she can't help the laugh that bubbles out at how ridiculous it is to sit on a couch and have a millionaire wipe tears from her face with the scratchy flannel blanket thrown over the back of the couch.

"Have you been to his grave?" He asks and all she can do is shake her head. She's tried several times but has gotten to the gate and been unable to move forward.

And maybe that was a little on the nose.

"Maybe it'll help."

"Maybe..." She answers and turns back to the tv, grabbing the remote and switching over to Wargames because if she sees any more of _the body_ she'll just break.

* * *

**A/N: **Hoped you liked it let me know i'd love to talk to you longer but i'm going to be late for work.


	19. Shrines: MAC

**Shrines: MAC**

* * *

Okay.

She can totally do this.

It's just a glorified park.

Lush green grass.

Flowers.

Trees.

Dead people.

She can't do it.

She absolutely can not go in there and look at his name written in stone, not when part of her just really wants to pretend that he's alive.

He'd been crazy rich. Crushing people rich. Disappear from the law rich. It had been easy to let herself believe that he was alive, somewhere, Paris, Prague, somewhere hot with good surf. It was bad, she knew and she'd been pretty tight lipped about the idea when sitting across from her therapist, but she had wanted it so badly to be true.

Its not like she expected him to just show up and take her away from this place and all her problems so they could finally be together.

No.

She'd never thought about that at all.

God she was sick.

She drops her head onto the steering wheel.

Logan had offered to go with her. She'd said no.

Dick hadn't offered. Just looked at her black dress and the look of terror on her face, nodded his understanding and left the room.

Which was too bad because she wanted him to offer badly. But what had she done lately to deserve his kindness? She had been a bitch. Dick was growing as a person, wanting more from her than she was apparently ready to give and all she'd done was wipe his hard drive of porn and put her perfume in his bedding, left out the cute underwear when the whole house knew he still took those naps on her bed.

"God I'm such a bitch" she muttered to herself and took a deep breath and opened the car door.

Logan was right.

He had loved her and she him. But it was time to properly put him into the past tense. To really put him in the ground.

She put a sneaker on the ground and was amazed that the ground hadn't crumbled out from beneath her because it sure as hell felt like it should. She twisted in her seat and put her other foot down.

She was almost out of the car. Which may seem totally sad but she was doing much better than most of the times she'd come here.

Holding her breath she pushed herself out of the car and slammed the door closed behind her.

She got three whole steps before everything in her screamed to get back in the car. If she went back now, she could just say that she'd gone in. No one would be the wiser. She could go on in her totally unhealthy dream world. Where Cassidy, perpetually on the edge of seventeen, would always be out there in all his Bond Villain glory, waiting for her.

Oh fuck this had to stop.

She let's out a long breath and pitches her car keys over the high wall into the cemetery.

No going back now, she had to go get her keys.

* * *

The jagged cold metal stabs into her hands as she stands in front of the grave.

Actually on it.

Right on it.

There are no flowers, just a faded post-it of Neptune grand stationary that she /will not/ read. She won't read Dick's message but she pushes her fingers on the edges of it to keep it stuck there.

Whatever it is, is between Dick and Cassidy. She has enough issues with this particular devil to add his to the scale.

She stands on his grave and digs her sneakers into the turf and has no idea what to do.

They always yell and scream and cry in movies and books and she's never really gotten that. He's dead he can't hear her. He doesn't come by his grave to smell the flowers no ones leaving or to read the notes Dick sticks to his grave. He's not doing anything ever again and he hasn't been for a while now...apparently.

She used to monitor Phoenix land-trust, used to watch bank accounts and pray for a transaction. For something she could track down. An entire summer of praying and therapy and self defence classes with the Persian, she'd lost so many hours digging through banking information when he was clearly six feet down scooped into a pine box.

Actually it was probably a fancy coffin.

She felt like she should do something or say something that's what people did to get closure right?

She should yell at him. He'd raped her best friend and hadn't been able to touch her. He'd left her naked in a stripped down hotel room.

Why wasn't she madder.

She was broken and she'd never mend properly and it was his fault but more than anything she just didn't want him to be dead.

She didn't want to be with him any more, not like she used to, not when she'd have_ the dreams_ not when she'd put alerts on all his accounts (even ones under false names), not like she did when she wore black all summer and didn't speak to anyone who wasn't paid to listen but god she wanted him to be alive.

She loves him.

Present tense.

Always she's sure.

But its going to be different soon. He's going to shift in her and he's going to stay beautiful and smart and broken and a part of her, but they'll be room to love someone else.

Soon.

She bends down and grabs a handful of grass and turns to leave. She'll be back and next time she probably won't have to throw her keys.

She stuffs the grass into the unused ashtray where she's hiding a jump drive of photographs and emails from him and a couple pieces of his favourite gum. Its a mini shrine and it's probably unhealthy but she doesn't care.


	20. Shrines: Dick

**Shrines: Dick**

* * *

"I can't believe she kicked us out of our own damn house." Dick mutters flicking sand at Logan.

"Hey if the little lady wants to make us a Thanksgiving feast then I am all for it." Logan smirks and flicks some sand back at Dick.

"Us?" Dick can't help but laugh at that. He is fully aware that he is not invited to the Mars/Echolls thanksgiving festivities tomorrow.

"Yeah." Logan tells him firmly but he can't help but roll his eyes. He has no illusions about the state of his relationship with Ronnie. While it's definitely gotten better after their little shopping heart to heart they are no where near_ let me make you thanksgiving dinner and have you spend time with my family _time. Thank god.

He fully expects to disappear tomorrow for the day, he'll probably hang out at the frat house and play video games and eat pizza and be thankful for respawning points and fake id's. Just like he'd been thankful for all those years when it was just him and Cass drinking and playing video games.

He's pretty sure he's never had a home cooked turkey in his life and while he's confident in Veronica's baking skills he's not really willing to hand over what might be a first to such a novice that had thrown them out of the whole house covered in flour and screaming about something separating.

"Sure."

"No man, you're invited, you're my brother."

"You just want me there to deflect some of those_ living in sin_ glares. Dude there's no way he believes that Mac and Ronnie share a room, just bite the bullet."

"Never!" Logan yells out and flops back into the sand.

Dick flops into the sand as well, staring up at the soft fluffy clouds drifting in from a life at sea.

"So what's going on with you and Mac?" Logan asks and he doesn't even turn to look at him.

"Dude I don't know." And honestly he doesn't. She's torturing him and it's ridiculous because he's trying to be the better person instead of just ploughing her sans strings. He's never really been a fan of the strings before, of the trappings of a _relationship_ but Mac makes it look good, "Ronnie says she's got shit to sort out first, which yeah, fine, I can wait and shit I guess but seriously she's got to take the parental lock off my damn computer."

Logan's laugh seems to fill the whole sky.

But it's true, if he's not going to be fucking her, and he doesn't want to fuck anyone else then he's got to have access to his porn again or he'll explode. And that's part of the huge scary thing with this feelings shit, he doesn't want to fuck anyone else. He just wants to fuck her, go rough, go slow, he doesn't really care as long as he wakes up next to her.

There's a high pitched scream from the kitchen and the sound of the patio doors being ripped open and Mac's voice clearly apologising.

His chest tightens in the anticipation of her arrival and it's been hell for weeks, this full body anticipation of something he knows isn't going to happen, but his lungs tighten and everything in his middle feels heavy and thick and immovable.

Her shadow is thrown over them.

"I asked if she wanted help and she asked if I wanted a foot up my ass." the sun is behind her so she's this dark shadowy thing, her face dark but he can still somehow tell that she's smirking.

Logan sits up and Dick watches them look at each other, their conversation shifting wordlessly in the air between them. She nods and then he nods and she sits down in the sand next to Dick and he can feel the heat of her because she's sitting really close. The impulse to hold her is strong but he's sure he can't take her brushing off his innocent touches, doesn't want her to turn it into something sordid.

"How long did it take you to get out of the car?" Logan asks conversationally.

Mac sighs heavily and falls back into the sand next to him, "A half an hour. I ended up throwing my keys over the fence so I had to go in."

He can't help but laugh because it's ridiculous, she's ridiculous and it's cute.

"Shut up." she mutters and jabs her elbow into his side, "What are you doing tomorrow?" she asks, "You staying her for the big 'family' dinner?" she asks raising her arms so he can see her air quotes silhouetted against the sky.

"Yes he is." Logan offers.

"No, I'm not."

"Me neither."

"Yes you are."

"You going home?" He asks and turns to look at her, she has a hand over her eyes, her skin still pale in spite of all the sun she's gotten.

"Yeah, where are you going?"

He likes that she seems to totally understand why he can't stay here, "The frat probably."

"Eww, gross." He watches her mouth twist displeased, "you are not spending Thanksgiving at the frat house. Come home with me."

"What?"

"What?" The question is echoed on the other side of him as Logan sits up at looks down at them both.

Mac still has a hand over her eyes and she shrugs, "Yeah, my mom always makes way too much, we'll watch the Great Pumpkin with my brother and then you can watch football or whatever." She pulls her hand away from her eyes and looks at him, "that's what guys do on Thanksgiving right? Football?"

"Yeah..."

"I mean if you'd rather..." her face gets flushed and he wonders if she's just realised that she's invited him home for a holiday with her family.

_Yes of course I want to spend the day with you._

His mouth opens and nothing comes out.

Logan tosses his foot into Dick's shin and sound finally bursts out of his throat, "A Mackenzie Thanksgiving sounds good."

"Okay." she smiles at him and sits up, "I'm going to go call my mom."

"You're going back in there?" Logan asks, more than a little awe coloring his voice.

"Course I am."

They watch as she walks up the stairs and straight into the house. There's a burst of sound but Mac doesn't reappear.

He can't help but wonder if he can get away with that too. He stands up and dusts the sand off his shorts.

"Where are you going?"

"Hopefully straight to my room without you're girlfriends foot up my ass."

* * *

He manages to get upstairs with only a blast of sailor worthy swearing, Mac's bedroom door is closed but he looks at it for a long moment anyway before going into his bedroom.

He closes his bedroom door tightly before opening the bedside drawer. In the drawer is a pad of Neptune Grande stationary (the little post it ones he uses for Cassidy's grave stone), photos of his brother, a DVD of those stupid war movies Cas used to do the explosions for, one of those photo booth pictures with Cassidy and Mac kissing, a package of cinnamon gum, and newspaper clippings.

He takes the pad of paper out and writes the same thing he always writes.

_I'm sorry_

And goes directly to his car, the last ones glue will be coming off by now.

* * *

**A/N: **So the drama should calm down for a bit. I love Dick and Mac but they honestly have a lot of issues that need to be sorted. Hope you like it.


	21. Thanksgiving part 1: Dick

**Thanksgiving part one: DICK**

* * *

He was freaking out more than a little bit.

He'd thrown probably every shirt he owned across the room. Everything he touched seemed to have something obscene on it.

"What are you doing?" Wallace asked from the open doorway his tone held a laugh he was holding back.

"Hey." Dick pointed at him, "you've met her parents!" He surges forward grabs Wallace by the arm and pulls him into the room.

He pulls Wallace in front of his closet.

"What the hell am I supposed to wear."

Wallace bursts out laughing, no longer able to contain himself and he can't really blame him. He's being a teenage girl about this he knows. He's never given a shit about what anyone else had thought about him. Hell he'd picked up Madison in surf shorts and a t-shirt that said Virgin Slayer on it. The only dinners he'd ever really been invited to were 09er _functions_, he'd pull out some James Bond tailored shit and be done with it but he couldn't show up at the Mackenzie's house in a jacket that cost more than their car.

"Man Veronica was right you're adorable." Wallace reaches out and grabs a hold of Dick's cheek like an overly friendly Aunt.

Dick uses the rough hard block of plaster that is currently his left forearm to sweep away Wallace's touch before he crosses his arms and makes a discontent noise that sounds rather a lot like a horse and he fumes as Wallace's smile widens.

"Dude why are you even here shouldn't you be having thanksgiving with your mommy." He grumbles and watches as Wallace moves toward the clothes.

"I am."

"Are you a part of The Great Mars Family Thanksgiving?" He asks watching him push through the shirts left hanging in his closet.

"Have been for a while now." Wallace tells him, "not sure if it's better or worse for Logan though. Instead of just one over protective male he's got to deal with two. And my mom." He pulls out a black polo and throws it at him.

"I hate polos." He grumbles.

"Well you don't have a lot of options I can't imagine that your vaginatarian t-shirt is going to go over well with Mr. Mac."

He loves that shirt.

Hell _Mac_ loves that shirt. He's seen her smirk every time he's wearing it. Like she thinks she shouldn't find it funny but can't help herself.

"Dick hurry up!" Mac yells from the main floor where there's been a steady roll of chaotic static for about an hour now.

Dick freezes the shirt half on and he can hear Wallace laugh quietly but can't see him through the dark material.

"I can't do it. I can't go." Dick tells Wallace pulling the shirt all the way on, using his good arm to work the sleeve over his cast, the collar popping naturally.

"Why?" Wallace asks leaning against the wall by the closet.

"Mac's parents are going to take one look at me and know I want to fuck their daughter. Who lives in my house. And used to date my sociopathic little brother." He can't help but start pacing.

"Dude." Wallace moves quickly to him, his hands cold against his skin stop his momentum, "it'll be fine. They'll look at the way you look at her and know you want to keep her safe. It'll be fine."

"You're sure."

"Totally."

"Dick!" She yells up the stairs again and it pulls a smirk from him and goes to the hall to look down at her.

"You practising for later?" He asks with a self confident smirk that he doesn't feel all the way down. His stomach is a worthless fluttering mess and he hopes to god no one notices.

"What are you talking about?" She asks slowly and he can see her watching him move down the stairs.

"Screaming my name for when I-"

Her hands slap against his mouth and she slowly turns his head to the living room where not only are Logan and Sheriff Mars looking at him but Wallace's younger brother.

He runs his tongue along her hand and she pulls them quickly away, rubbing them against her jeans.

Dick tips an invisible hat, "Sheriff Mars, little man."

"Dick."

"We should go." Mac grabs his hand and pulls him out of the hallway towards the door.

Her hand is damp from his tongue but it burns all the same and he can't stop looking at the connection.

She just wants you for sex dude.

Super hot sex.

Rough sex.

That you could totally have in the car before you even leave for her parents place, or pull of somewhere pretty.

Biting his lip he pulls his hand from hers as they enter the garage. She looks up at him with wide confused eyes.

"Don't hold my hand."

"Why?" She asks quietly because she already knows the answer, she must. Because it doesn't mean anything to her, not like it means to him.

Oh shit.

He is an asshole.

Okay he's known that a while but he suddenly feels bad for stuff.

All those girls who held his hand and looked up at him like he was something. Holding_ his_ hand was what he wants holding _her_ hand to be. He'd just thought of it as doing those girls a favour.

Fuck did Mac think she was doing him a favour?

He unlocks the door for her (she calls his car the Mach Five and he thinks its adorable, he used to watch speed racer all the time.). She's still looking at him waiting to explain why something she can do with ease with Veronica and Wallace and maybe even Logan is off limits with him.

He starts the car and won't look at her.

"I don't want you doing me favours or giving me pity affection Cindy." He's not sure why he calls her by her actual name. Maybe to make it sound more serious. Because he means it. If she's going to hold his hand he wants it to _mean something_.

He can see her out of the corner of his eye as he pulls away from the house, her mouth is open to say something but no sound comes out.

"Also I want my porn back. If we're not going to fuck then I'm going to need my porn."

She twists in her seat, her legs slide apart and the modest skirt she's wearing rides up exposing her pale skin, her hands on his thigh.

The heat of her hand just pulsates through the denim and he swallows hard. He doesn't need to turn to know what look she's giving him. All dark eyes and long lashes and wet mouth.

"You're the one that doesn't want to fuck." The word pops in her mouth and he has to focus really hard on the road. He'll never live it down if he crashes them into a tree and he's not even getting road head.

"Yeah your right." He pulls off to the shoulder and he has no idea what he's going to do but if she's going to be looking at him like that the entire time their at her parents he's going to cave and fuck her in the closet or something and he's doing so god damn well.

That's it he's punishing her, he has to, it's his right. He's been an asshole for almost twenty years its an easy place to slide back into.

He turns the car off.

He's going to make her _beg_ for him.

"We're going to be late I have to help my mom with dinner."

He grabs a hold of her arm and pulls her to him roughly and his mouth is on hers.

Her response is immediate.

She's smiling against his skin and he knows she thinks she's won and he'll let her think that for now because she's biting and her fingers are pressing painfully against him and he loves it. He's been taking half the painkillers he's supposed to be so he can feel every bit of her.

She climbs into his lap, the skirt up pushed up around her waist. And his fingers trace patterns on her bare thighs pushing her back against the steering wheel. His hand climbs up her leg and she moans softly against his mouth in anticipation. Her fingers clawing at the edge of his polo, pushing it up trying to get at his skin, her hot hands against him. She pushes herself down into his lap her hands dropping to his belt.

He pulls away from her panting and _god_ she's gorgeous.

A panting beautiful mess and he wants nothing more than to just give her whatever she wants. He bites the inside of his mouth to remind himself that this about the long game. This is about wanting to actually really _be_ with her, to wake up next to her ever morning even when they hadn't had sex the night before.

This is about loving her.

_Fuck._

Does he love her?

"Dick?" She whispers, his name a trembling dark little thing in her mouth as she leans back against the steering wheel looking at him with those wide dark eyes that just pull at parts of him that he shouldn't even have.

Fuck he totally does.

He _loves _her.

He leans forward and kisses her and it isn't rough at all, there's a need in it but its different from before, its not carnal any more. The finger tips of his broken arm move softly across her face tucking hair behind her ear. She moves against him softly and its too damn easy to pretend she loves him too.

He pulls away from her and straightens out her hair, smoothing it down.

"Dick..."

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you." He tells her softly and shifts her easily back into the passenger seat, "buckle up for safety."

* * *

**A/N:** I hope you guys are ready because this is the start of the four part Thanksgiving special! Don't forget to show you're love. Seriously you guys are great.


	22. Thanksgiving part 1: MAC

**Thanksgiving Part 1: MAC**

* * *

She has her fingers pressed against her mouth and she doesn't care that he can see.

She'd thought he'd given in.

That he'd finally just have sex with her (cause _god _she's desperate for him) and they could do the causal thing until she was ready for anything more, if that ever happened. _But no_. She's positive now that he had meant to drive her close to the edge and just bail on her trying to make her agree to be his girlfriend out of sheer frustration and need.

But he'd pulled away from her and the darkness in his eyes had vanished replaced with something else, something bigger and scarier and amazing.

The second kiss, with tender soft fingers and a complete lack of urgency, slow and patient and sweet. Like he expected to kiss her everyday for the rest of his life. Like he had all the time in the world. It had pulled at something in her chest. Pulled the breath from her in a completely different way.

It left her warm and full not hot and desperate to fill.

She turned to look at him as he pulled up to her parents house.

He wanted to wait for her.

And she wanted him to.

Because when she was done properly putting his brother in a box there was no one else she could think of being with...well maybe James McAvoy.

"Fine you can have your porn back." She tells him as he shuts off the Mach Five. A car Ryan is going to just go ape shit for, "but stay out of those German sites they're just going to give you a virus."

He drops his keys into his lap and looks at her wide eyed, "you looked at my stuff?"

"Course I did." She gets out of the car and starts down the side walk to the house.

She can hear Dick slam his door and run to her.

"And we're still good?"

She shrugs, "sure. I'm not having sex with another girl thou."

"Oh come on!" Dick's voice is almost begging and it brings a wide smile to her face, "how do you know you don't like it if you won't try?"

"Who says I haven't tried it?"

"Fuck Mac that's not fair. Who? Ronnie? Parker? That girl in your film studies course with the nice rack?"

She turns to look at him at that and he raises his hands in surrender,"I don't like to share Dick." Her voice is darker than she intended and she let's him take that anyway he wants whatever it is he's smiling.

"I don't know any girls who'd be willing to go a round with you anyway, Champ."

She blushes at the mention of her little bitch fight video. She'd found it on his computer too. He'd watched it a lot.

She'd left it for him in place of his plethora of porn. She'd honesty been surprised that a guy who gets as much action as he does would have such a large collection.

She opens the front door and let's the chaotic noise wash over her. The sound of sports of some variety in the living room, the dull roar of Ryan, the boy couldn't do anything quiet, kitchen sounds, the chatter of her mother in the kitchen trying to get someone to help her with something.

She walks right in forgetting for a moment that she has someone with her.

She turns and Dick is standing just inside the door looking terrified and it pulls a smile across her face.

"Do you need a paper bag or something?"

"What?" His eyes focus on her and she mimes hyperventilating into a bag and his face turns hard.

"I'm fine." He tells her roughly.

Ryan walks past the front hallway and stops to look at them.

"Cindy and her boyfriend are here!" He yells into the rest of the house and walks casually away.

She can hear her mom drop something in the kitchen and her father appears in the hallway in an instant.

"Boyfriend? I thought he was just a friend. You're mom said he was just a friend. Natalie!" He turns towards the kitchen and she wonders if they'll spend the whole day in the front hallway.

Her mom skids to a stop behind her father she has turkey feathers on her apron and in her hair and it'd be cute if she didn't know that they once belonged to a very alive turkey that is now very dead on the kitchen counter.

"Oh my isn't he pretty..."

"Mom!" She hisses and her mothers face flushes instantly at being caught. She sighs heavily, "Dick these are my parents, Sam and Natalie."

Dick steps out behind her and goes to shake their hands with his broken arm. She rolls her eyes and puts a gentle hand on the cast and lowers it.

"Mr and Mrs. Mackenzie. Thank you for having me over."

"Oh its fine dear." Her mom waves it away, "why don't you go with Sam and watch some pre-game whatever while Cindy helps me finish up in the kitchen."

Her mother reaches out to her and she let's her mom drag her away into the kitchen. Leaving Dick with her father.

She looks everywhere but at the dead bird half dressed in the roasting pot on the counter.

"You never told me he was so good looking." Her mother gushes, pushing a cutting board and a bag of potatoes at her.

She sits down at the island and goes to work peeling and chopping the potatoes.

"What was I supposed to say. Hey mom is it okay if my friend comes to dinner tomorrow oh by the way he's super hot and don't look directly at him when he smiles because it's its been known to put weaker girls in the hospital?"

"Thanks."

Dick.

Oh god.

Dick is standing in the kitchen door a bright smile on his face and she can hear her mother giggling quietly behind her.

Oh god.

"You're dad sent me in here for a couple beers." He looks back down the hall, "is it some sort of trap? Should I go back with a coke or something? Or is he going to know I'm not drinking on purpose because I want him to like me? Because he totally knows I drink I just told him what Frat I'm in."

She can't believe he's saying all this in front of her mom, but then again he's got her mom under some sort of spell all ready. Oh my god does his _slut magic_ work on her mother?!

_Mom you slut._

"It's a trap." Her mom tells him with a wink handing him two beers from the fridge, "just be yourself sweetie and you'll be fine."

He smiles up at her mom and its the snow melting breath taking one that makes her chest feel thick. But her mom stays in the door watching him go.

"Mom!" She bursts out half laughing half outraged to find her mother leering.

"What?" She asks but the smile on her face is wide and telling as she walks back to deal with the bird, "I may be happily married sweetheart but that doesn't mean I'm blind."

* * *

**A/N:** oh my god I love Mac's mom. Hope you did too.


End file.
